But Paul wants to tell us how and why our freedom is not license to do anything. This issue fits nations and this issue fits each one of us in our own personal lives. Today's text will tell us that our new freedom in Christ carries with it two far more powerful restraints that any law could ever impose because these restraints work from within rather than from without and they work against the destructive forces of sin and for the constructive forces of a God-controlled life. The first restraint of our new freedom is love. First, consider the restraining force of love.
Love forms the chief part of Christian perfection .
Love is called the fulfilling of the law, not because it is superior to the worship of God, but because it is the proof of it . Ask counsel of your own heart and it will teach you sufficiently how to love your neighbor. This is clearly a new kind of slavery that works from the inside out rather than the outside in . Paul says that our freedom is not for self-indulgence but for service to others. The best reason to be good is to want to be good .