Cause and effect.  We humans rely on this ingrained thinking most often.  We either wear ourselves out overthinking and analyzing our circumstances and others situations to explain them as we spin the wheels of foolishness, thinking that we are in control of life here.  We think, even as believers, we can explain why everything happens when only God has the final answer. Our first thought when someone is ill is to figure out why they became so sick.  If they had done this, that would not have happened.  When someone has an accident, we search all the possibilities of why it happened and come to judgement—if they would have done this; this would not have happened.  When a marriage is falling apart, we can come up with a thousand reasons why the marriage is in trouble.  We are a judgy bunch because we think we can explain life—on our terms with our rules of cause and effect.

Paul brings limited human points of view back into focus with the Galatian church who are trying to sort out life based on rule keeping versus pure faith in the One who saved us by God’s grace alone.  His words are personal.  Jesus is personal.  Jesus who lives in all believers of Him is very personal.  We either believe Him or not, put all our faith and trust in Jesus who lives in us or not.  We must decide and fully commit—or not.  But one thing is for sure—Grace wins every time!

Controversies can be defused and eliminated when our central focus is “Christ in us.”

Galatians 2, The Message

What Is Central?

^1-5 Fourteen years after that first visit, Barnabas and I went up to Jerusalem and took Titus with us. I went to clarify with them what had been revealed to me. At that time I placed before them exactly what I was preaching to the non-Jews. I did this in private with the leaders, those held in esteem by the church, so that our concern would not become a controversial public issue, marred by ethnic tensions, exposing my years of work to denigration and endangering my present ministry. Significantly, Titus, non-Jewish though he was, was not required to be circumcised. While we were in conference we were infiltrated by spies pretending to be Christians, who slipped in to find out just how free true Christians are. Their ulterior motive was to reduce us to their brand of servitude. We didn’t give them the time of day. We were determined to preserve the truth of the Message for you.

^6-10 As for those who were considered important in the church, their reputation doesn’t concern me. God isn’t impressed with mere appearances, and neither am I. And of course these leaders were able to add nothing to the message I had been preaching. It was soon evident that God had entrusted me with the same message to the non-Jews as Peter had been preaching to the Jews. Recognizing that my calling had been given by God, James, Peter, and John—the pillars of the church—shook hands with me and Barnabas, assigning us to a ministry to the non-Jews, while they continued to be responsible for reaching out to the Jews. The only additional thing they asked was that we remember the poor, and I was already eager to do that.

^11-13 Later, when Peter came to Antioch, I had a face-to-face confrontation with him because he was clearly out of line. Here’s the situation. Earlier, before certain persons had come from James, Peter regularly ate with the non-Jews. But when that conservative group came from Jerusalem, he cautiously pulled back and put as much distance as he could manage between himself and his non-Jewish friends. That’s how fearful he was of the conservative Jewish clique that’s been pushing the old system of circumcision. Unfortunately, the rest of the Jews in the Antioch church joined in that hypocrisy so that even Barnabas was swept along in the charade.

¹⁴ But when I saw that they were not maintaining a steady, straight course according to the Message, I spoke up to Peter in front of them all: “If you, a Jew, live like a non-Jew when you’re not being observed by the watchdogs from Jerusalem, what right do you have to require non-Jews to conform to Jewish customs just to make a favorable impression on your old Jerusalem buddies?”

^15-16 We Jews know that we have no advantage of birth over “non-Jewish sinners.” We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it—and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen! Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good.

^17-18 Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren’t perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous. If I was “trying to be good,” I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a pretender.

^19-21 What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

²¹ Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

It is easy to fall into a destructive pattern of pleasing people instead of God.  We naturally want the applause of others as we grow in our faith with God. No sure of our new life in Christ, we do what other believers do, saying what they say and even falling prey to saying what we know they want to hear so they will be pleased with us.  We think that by following all their traditions and rules, both written and unwritten for the church we are attending, all will go well with us.  Paul tells us plainly that this way of life is not what God wants for us nor does it please Him. Knowing that Christ lives in us, guiding us to be like Him, is central to being fully alive in Christ!

It is also very easy to fall into old habits of judging each other, especially those who we think do not say the “right words”, dress, or act just like you as they grow in their faith.  It is easy to judge those who say no to you.  I was once called by a relative of mine in my early adult years to tell me she had a message from God about me.  She told me in detail what I should be doing with my life for God based on her revelation from God.  Her “revelation” was mostly about a task at church that needed a volunteer to get it done. 

The more she talked, the more manipulated and intimidated I felt rather than feeling spiritually mentored and uplifted.  I listened out of respect for her while praying to God for help.  He reminded me that He the One who calls me.  It is God who will tell me His will with His timing.  It is God who guides and provides, equips, and prepares us.  It is God who I must please rather than someone who wants me to please them.  It is God who we need to listen to first and always.  God will certainly send others to mentor us as we obey HIS call.  But others are not the ones who do the calling.  This incident taught me early on as a future leader of young adults to avoid tactics of manipulation in mentoring believers who are seeking God’s will and purpose for their lives. God’s will is personal and comes from Christ in us!

Paul finishes with deep Truth that requires meditation and evaluation for each one of us today: “Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.”

WHO are we wanting to please most?  Be honest.

Please God in all we think, say, and do.  May our first thought be to ask what Jesus would say or do in our circumstances and relationships.  How would He respond to others as He walked the earth?  First, He got alone to talk with God. Their relationship was deep and everlasting for they were One in Three—God, Jesus, Holy Spirit.  Jesus did everything on earth to please His Father, God in heaven.  Jesus did what His Father was already doing—seeking a personal, intimate, growing, loving relationship with all who would believe in Him.  Then He responded with the words God gave Him with power from God’s Holy Spirit within Him.  This same Holy Spirit power resurrected Jesus from death.  This same power is God’s gift to us to help us do His will!

“Seek God first,” says Jesus, and you will find Him because we are known to Him!  God will tell us exactly what pleases Him and be His best for us. God’s Holy Spirit will guide us to Truth.  God never fails, never gives up on us, and will always love us.  Yes, it’s personal.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” –Jesus, Matthew 7:7-8  It is interesting to note that Matthew 7 begins with; “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” –Jesus, Matthew 7:1-2

“I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.” –Paul, Galatians 2

Lord,

Just like Paul said, “Christ lives in me” and I’m not going back on that”, I too believe in you.  I’m not out to impress you but to please and honor you with my life.  I can only do that with you leading and guiding me.  Forgive me when I fall to pleasing others so I can feel better about myself.  Cleanse my heart, renew my mind, refresh my soul, and restore the joy and peace of your salvation work within me.  The best is yet to come!

In Jesus Name, Amen