(Please read the Scripture first)
My sisters and brothers,
God made us for freedom. God gave us freedom so that we could choose to do good, not so that we can do whatever we want, but so that we can choose to do what we ought to do. Freedom is not doing whatever we want. Freedom is for choosing the good. To choose evil is s violation of our freedom. Our calling is the freedom of choosing only the good, not what is bad. We should not be making our freedom a pretext for satisfying our own selfishness.
St Paul wants us to live according to the demands of the Spirit, not according to the demands of selfishness. Selfishness is choosing to do whatever we want even if it be evil. This disordered action is contrary to the Spirit of God.
God made us for freedom. Selfishness is not freedom; it is the yoke of slavery. Selfishness does everything for self, not for our freedom. WE are free, brothers and sisters, so that we can serve one a other with love. When we bite and devour one another mutually, we destroy our selves. The result of selfishness is death; the freedom God gives us in creating us is for eternal life.
All wars. all the violence in the world and all our disputes are from our selfishness and the selfishness of all the rest.
Lying, killing, stealing, flattering, committing adultery, manipulating others, deceiving others, are forms of selfishness and are contrary to the freedom God has given us.
We, whom God’s Spirit guides, are not under selfishness, but we do have the freedom God has.
Our vocation and our goal is to enjoy the freedom God has because God freely has created us in the image and likeness of God. Our freedom reflects the freedom God has shared with the whole of creation, which is the gift of God’s love. We have this freedom so that we can love one another as God loves us.