16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves.

1 Peter 2:16

In America, we value the idea of freedom. Many people from around the world aspire to the freedom we hold dearly.

But many in this country are also abusing the freedoms they have, as the Scripture says, as a cover up for evil. They call evil good and good evil.

Of course, they are not believers and they would say they’re merely taking their freedoms as far as they can.

The Scripture tells us, though, that we are to live as God’s slaves in regard to freedom.

What does that mean exactly? Recall in the previous verse, we were to submit to authorities. We are not their slaves to do their bidding. Instead, we do God’s bidding.

How is that different? Again, we refer to the previous devotional. As slaves to God, we obey those in authority as long as they are not abusing that authority by asking us to do things contrary to God’s moral code. There is freedom in obeying God when He asks us to do this because we know that God will straighten it out in the end if the authorities have abused their power.