Daily Manna (Coffee with Jesus)

“Oh, grow up…”  Admit it.  This has been said to us more than once while getting through those adolescent years, right?  This phrase from parents comes as their beloved adolescent has rolled their eyes when corrected, asked to do something to help the household in which they live, or by merely trying to communicate.

At times, as parents we feel and can almost hear the eyerolls of our adolescents as they walk away in disgust at our wisdom in raising them!  Parents and other significant, caring adults heave loud sighs as adolescents gripe and complain about life, their siblings’ behaviors, while daring to confront their parents with their “rights” as individuals while still residing in the home provided for them.  But they are kids who have not yet grow up to realize what life is all about, right?  As adults, we no longer live like adolescents—do we?

As new believers, there comes a time when we must decide and commit to who we are in Christ.  Who are in Christ was plainly outlined by Paul at the beginning of his letter to the church and continued through chapter 3.  In chapter 4 we come to the “therefore” portion of Paul’s teaching that will clearly explain how believers, confident in their new life in Christ, need to behave.  Our belief in Jesus should be in sync with our behaviors as we become more like Jesus.  Who we are leads what we do—with the help of God’s Holy Spirit guiding us! 

Paul could be saying, “no eyerolls, please;” we must grow up in Christ, listen to what God wants, and then do what He says!  Live to avoid the “sigh” of God and instead live to please God—not because it looks good or feels good but because of our sincere love and gratitude for God—the One and Only who is Good!  Thank God who so loved us He sent His Son, Jesus to save us!  Yes, it’s time to grow up—from the inside out!

Ephesians 4, The Message

Be Mature

^1-3 In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.

^4-6 You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness.

^7-13 But that doesn’t mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift. The text for this is,

He climbed the high mountain,
He captured the enemy and seized the plunder,
He handed it all out in gifts to the people.

Is it not true that the One who climbed up also climbed down, down to the valley of earth? And the One who climbed down is the One who climbed back up, up to highest heaven. He handed out gifts above and below, filled heaven with his gifts, filled earth with his gifts. He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christ’s followers in skilled servant work, working within Christ’s body, the church, until we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ.

^14-16 No prolonged infancies among us, please. We’ll not tolerate babes in the woods, small children who are easy prey for predators. God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love.

The Old Way Has to Go

^17-19 And so I insist—and God backs me up on this—that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd. They’ve refused for so long to deal with God that they’ve lost touch not only with God but with reality itself. They can’t think straight anymore. Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in sexual obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion.

^20-24 But that’s no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.

²⁵ What this adds up to, then, is this: no more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ’s body we’re all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself.

^26-27 Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life.

²⁸ Did you use to make ends meet by stealing? Well, no more! Get an honest job so that you can help others who can’t work.

²⁹ Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift.

³⁰ Don’t grieve God. Don’t break his heart. His Holy Spirit, moving and breathing in you, is the most intimate part of your life, making you fit for himself. Don’t take such a gift for granted.

^31-32 Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Pause to pray asking God to transform us to be all He created us to be.  This will cause a disturbance of habits, expect it.  This will require putting self-interests aside in the process of growing up to be more like Jesus in every way.  Our new lives of believing and behaving like Jesus begin on the inside, flowing from our hearts.

I’m reminded just now of a new song written by Miranda Curtis, “Let Praises Rise”

Let praises rise
From the inside
From the inside of me

May you delight
In the inside
In the inside of me
Come fill my life
From the inside
From the inside of me

Set me on fire
From the inside
From the inside of me
All I want is for you
For you to be glorified
For you to be lifted high
All I want is for you

For you to be glorified for you to be glorified
Let praises rise from the inside
From the inside of me…

New Life begins with the heart.  God sees and knows our hearts.  He knows what is real and what is not.  “The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. What a fool you have been! From now on you will be at war.” 2 Chronicles 16:9, NLT  We can avoid the foolishness of being at war with evil who teaches us to be unloving to each other—cling to what is good by being committed fully to Who is Good—The One who has already won the war!  God strengthens the fully committed who trust Him.  Be real, it’s time to grow up…

Lord,

Thank you for helping us grow up from the inside out each day we commit ourselves to you as an offering.  Help us to embrace who you are working in us so that we may become more like you in every way from the inside out.  Help us to mature as we live a “life renewed from the inside and working itself into our conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in us.” 

I pray that the world will see you in me today and that you will be glorified through me.  I believe.  Transform my behaviors to match my belief in You.  Help me to grow up!

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen. 

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. Genesis 1:1-4

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:1-5

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”—Jesus, John 14:6

 ^“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”      –Jesus, Revelation 22:13

“The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board.”—Paul, Ephesians 3:6

Ephesians 3, The Message

The Secret Plan of God

^1-3 This is why I, Paul, am in jail for Christ, having taken up the cause of you outsiders, so-called. I take it that you’re familiar with the part I was given in God’s plan for including everybody. I got the inside story on this from God himself, as I just wrote you in brief.

^4-6 As you read over what I have written to you, you’ll be able to see for yourselves into the mystery of Christ. None of our ancestors understood this. Only in our time has it been made clear by God’s Spirit through his holy apostles and prophets of this new order. The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives (what I’ve been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board.

^7-8 This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God’s way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.

^8-10 And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along. Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels!

^11-13 All this is proceeding along lines planned all along by God and then executed in Christ Jesus. When we trust in him, we’re free to say whatever needs to be said, bold to go wherever we need to go. So don’t let my present trouble on your behalf get you down. Be proud!

* * *

^14-19 My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

^20-21 God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.

Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

PAUL BRINGS THE SECRET OUT IN THE OPEN!  The secret is Jesus came to rescue everyone!  This was God’s plan from the beginning. God knew we would need a Rescuer!  God created each one of us so He knows us well—from the inside out!.  He knows us by name, even down to the number of hairs we have on our heads on any given day!  Mind-blowing, I know!

God so loves his created people, who are made in His image.  He knows our thoughts, sees our hearts, watches as we grapple with decision making while sorting out the choices offered to us daily.  God delights in all the details of our lives!  From the beginning, God also knew we would need a way back to Him when our decision making failed us when relied only on ourselves, refusing guidance from Him.  Although we break His heart as we stumbled onto dark paths, His love never changes, His plan never fails. 

God knew before we did that the “darkness” of His enemy would try to overcome us.  Hence, God’s plan was put in place to save us from ourselves and from the Enemy who hates God. 

God loves everyone and His desire is that NO ONE perish in the darkness.  That’s why EVERYBODY is welcomed to come to Him.  Yes, from the beginning, we were on God’s mind.  He had this plan to bring all who believe and trust Him to be brought out of darkness and into the Light of His love, forgiven by His unfailing mercy, and unending grace.  The plan was divinely executed in Jesus who willingly came to earth to seek and to save the lost who were without God, reconciling all who believe to God.

This message of reconciliation, rescuing and reconnecting us to God, our Creator by believing in Jesus, His Son, compels Paul, along with others down through the ages, who are called and equipped by God to passionately and tirelessly go and tell the Truth of who God is, what Jesus did, along with proclaiming the gift of God’s Holy Spirit provided to help us live God’s best.

We are called to go and tell, too!  We are created to give God glory!  We were created to love like He loves us—that includes everyone!

I pray our response is like Paul’s—

“My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.”

In Jesus Name, Amen!  Yes!  Be our strength by day and our song in the night!

We get used the smell the longer we live in it and assume that’s just the way life is.  We accept the broken parts of our lives, limping along, because we don’t know how to heal.  We live like this until the day comes when we discover a place where the air is different, sweeter without the stench which we have become accustomed.  We take a deep breathe to fill our lungs with this new smell of fresh, pure air, and suddenly come alive!

We see, hear, and feel stronger. We are drawn to stay where the air is cleaner and more refreshing.  This new air is healing to our souls.  Broken parts are mended and made whole.  We are attracted to the fragrance of others who are breathing in this fresh air.  The freshness of this air causes us to be kinder and gentler, more loving, and less judgmental, humbler, and less arrogant.  So, we linger in the life-giving air.  We take another deep breath of this fresh, pure air and decide right then and there to never leave.  This place is called Truth, the Way to real Life—Forever! 

Ephesians 2, The Message

He Tore Down the Wall

2 ^1-6 It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

^7-10 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

^11-13 But don’t take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God’s ways had no idea of any of this, didn’t know the first thing about the way God works, hadn’t the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God’s covenants and promises in Israel, hadn’t a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.

^14-15 The Messiah has made things up between us so that we’re now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.

^16-18 Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.

^19-22 That’s plain enough, isn’t it? You’re no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You’re no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.

WHAT DO WE LEARN?  HOW DO WE RESPOND?

First, take a deep breath.  Inhale God’s Holy Spirit, the clean, pure air of Life everlasting.  Exhale the impurities of our souls that does not give or sustain Life in Jesus.  Christ in us is our daily breath of fresh air.  Jesus who saved us is the air we breathe!  And Jesus who resides in us, working in and through us, is the fragrance that attracts others who seek Him.

“For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.  2 Corinthians 2:15-17 ESV

Paul goes to work to encourage the Ephesians.  What was once broken can be healed.  What the believers accepted as “that’s just the way life is” is no longer a valid way to live.  Jesus tore down the wall between Jews and non-Jews by His sacrifice, redeeming all of us “once and for all for all the sins of the world!  Jesus set free all who believe making us free to love each other like He loves us.  We are all equals!  All who believe are “joint heirs” with Jesus who died and rose again for us.  What a breath of fresh air! 

“…we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Hebrews 10:10, NIV

Paul shows how Jesus, the Messiah, is eternally and tirelessly bringing everything and everyone together!  And we are invited to be participants in the God’s work in the Name of Jesus! 

“Now that we know what is going on, that the energy of reconciliation is the dynamo at the heart of the universe, it is imperative that we join in vigorously and perseveringly, convinced that every detail in our lives contributes (or not) to what Paul describes as God’s plan worked out by Christ; ‘a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in Him, everything in deepest heaven; everything on planet earth.’” –Peterson, Introduction to Ephesians, The Message Bible

Lord,

Breath by breath, brick by brick, you are teaching us to daily breathe in your fresh air as you build our faith.  You are teaching us to be more like you, having the same fragrant aroma of your love which attracts others to your saving grace.  You truly are the air I breathe.  When this life offers something else, something that doesn’t smell right, lead me to take a deep breath of pureness as I remain in you and you abide in me.  Make yourself at home in me.  You are a breath of fresh air.  You are life to me.

In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen

“What we know about God and what we do for God have a way of getting broken apart in our lives.  The moment the organic unity of belief and behavior is damaged in nay way, we are incapable of living out the full humanity for which we were created.”

“Paul’s letter to the Ephesians joins together what has been torn apart in our sin-wrecked world.  He begins with an exuberant exploration of what Christians believe about God, and then like a surgeon skillfully setting a compound fracture, “sets” this belief in God into our behavior before God so that the bones—belief and behavior—knit together and heal.” –Eugene Peterson, “Introduction to Ephesians”, The Message Bible

Oh church, I have lived long enough to see many churches and individuals, including me, broken by behaviors unbecoming to God and in need of restoration of their belief in God. No one is exempt.  We have seen the results of the “bones of belief and behavior,” as Peterson says, left unattended or our spiritual problems patched only by human efforts and self-help programs.  We have watched with sadness as the Body of Christ limps through life, disjointed, dysfunctional, and left paralyzed by fear of change. 

Paul cannot and will not stand by and watch while the Body of Christ flounders, in need of the healing and restoration of our Great Physician.  He writes of the One who sets the “broken bones” back into place!  Paul is called to write letters to the churches to remind them who they are in Christ (belief) with what they must do (behavior).  Paul is giftedly called to begin with who they are and thank God for them.  Paul will then shift from belief to behavior with a “therefore” in most translations at the peak of his letter.  Paul loves the Body of Christ because of his love for Christ!

Ephesians 1, The Message

I, Paul, am under God’s plan as an apostle, a special agent of Christ Jesus, writing to you faithful believers in Ephesus. I greet you with the grace and peace poured into our lives by God our Father and our Master, Jesus Christ.

The God of Glory

^3-6 How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He’s the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.

^7-10 Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.

^11-12 It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.

^13-14 It’s in Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it (this Message of your salvation), found yourselves home free—signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit. This down payment from God is the first installment on what’s coming, a reminder that we’ll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and glorious life.

^15-19 That’s why, when I heard of the solid trust you have in the Master Jesus and your outpouring of love to all the followers of Jesus, I couldn’t stop thanking God for you—every time I prayed, I’d think of you and give thanks. But I do more than thank. I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength!

^20-23 All this energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND

WE ARE ON GOD’S MIND

“Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love.” We were on God’s mind before He created the earth!  And if that isn’t enough to blow our minds, Jesus was right there with God as He created the earth and all that is in it.  God had designed a plan to save us while He created the earth and the humans who would occupy it.  Why?  All because of His great love for us.  Let that sink in! 

IN CHRIST

“It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for…” As the Body of Christ, our belief and behaviors are the bones of our existence in Christ. The Body of Christ is built on the foundation of Christ who died for us and set us free!

Believing in Christ, we are “signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit.”

It is in Christ that we find out our purpose for living.  It is in Christ that we find the strength, wisdom, and boundless energy to do what God has called us to be.

Everything begins and ends with Jesus Christ our Lord.  It is in Christ where new life begins.  God put Jesus in charge— “no name and no power exempt from his rule.”  Forever! 

The powerful energy used by God to raise Jesus as the victor over death has been given to us so that we may live generously and love extravagantly—just like He loves us.  This glorious living and loving can only be found and lived in Christ.

JESUS—THE SUM OF ALL THE PARTS OF THE BODY

It is in Christ alone that we find forgiveness of our sins.

It is Jesus who resets the broken bones or our faltering belief and sets us right with God personally and as the Body of Christ.  While healing, it is God’s Holy Spirit in us who transforms our behavior to match what we say we believe.  Healing and restoring takes time.  Forgiveness happens the minute we say we are sorry. 

Repent and believe and we are saved and made whole and holy by Jesus.

“He (God) set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.”

“The church is Christ’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.”

We were created to love God back both personally and corporately as the Body of Christ.  We need God.  We need each other.  “And love Each Other as I have loved you,” says Jesus.  In Christ, we are able do that—love like He loves us.

Lord,

Thank you for these words that have stirred my heart. Thank you for resetting my bones of belief and behavior throughout my life as I remain in you and you in me. Continue to cleanse my heart, renew my mind, transform by behaviors, refresh my soul with your daily, tender mercies, while you restore the joy and peace while your salvation that is at work within me.  I delight living your glorious life that can only be found in You.

In Jesus Name, Amen

What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Refrain:
O precious is the flow
that makes me white as snow;
no other fount I know;
nothing but the blood of Jesus.

(Author—Robert Lowry, 1876)

We believe and are forgiven, saved for eternity—all because of Jesus!  Paul helps to know how to live this redeemed life as we believe, trust, and obey our Savior who is now our Lord—the Lord of our being!  Here is the simple Truth with how to respond to Truth—Jesus.

Galatians 6, The Message

Nothing but the Cross

6 ^1-3 Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.

^4-5 Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.

⁶ Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.

^7-8 Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.

^9-10 So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.

^11-13 Now, in these last sentences, I want to emphasize in the bold scrawls of my personal handwriting the immense importance of what I have written to you. These people who are attempting to force the ways of circumcision on you have only one motive: They want an easy way to look good before others, lacking the courage to live by a faith that shares Christ’s suffering and death. All their talk about the law is gas. They themselves don’t keep the law! And they are highly selective in the laws they do observe. They only want you to be circumcised so they can boast of their success in recruiting you to their side. That is contemptible!

^14-16 For my part, I am going to boast about nothing but the Cross of our Master, Jesus Christ. Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world, set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate. Can’t you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do—submit to circumcision, reject circumcision. It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life! All who walk by this standard are the true Israel of God—his chosen people. Peace and mercy on them!

¹⁷ Quite frankly, I don’t want to be bothered anymore by these disputes. I have far more important things to do—the serious living of this faith. I bear in my body scars from my service to Jesus.

¹⁸ May what our Master Jesus Christ gives freely be deeply and personally yours, my friends. Oh, yes!

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

God forgave my sin in Jesus’ name,
I’ve been born again in Jesus’ name;
And in Jesus’ name I come to you
To share His love as He told me to.

Chorus
He said: ‘Freely, freely, you have received,
Freely, freely give;
Go in My name, and because you believe
Others will know that I live.’

All power is given in Jesus’ name,
In earth and heaven in Jesus’ name;
And in Jesus’ name I come to you
To share His power as He told me to.

(Copyright © 1972 Bud John Songs/ EMI Christian Music Publishing/ Adm. by CopyCare.)

Paul, led by God’s Holy Spirit, has illuminated our response with dynamic verbs of commanding actions to take in our lives, coupled with the power given to us to do what God says.  These commands should permeate our being as we become “first responders” to others with God’s love flowing through us.  These words of clarification for the church then and now, of living our lives in obedience to Christ, helps us to know specifically how relate to each other in ways that please God. 

OUR FOCUS:

• Live creatively.
• Forgive and restore—minus critical comments.
• Stoop down and reach out—the posture of the compassion of Christ in us!
• Share burdens—we’ve all “been there, done that,” don’t act as if you haven’t.
• Sink into exploration of who you are and the work you have been given with focus on completing.
• Take responsibility for your own life lived for God.
• Share the good that has come to you, courtesy of God, with others longing to know God more.
• Plant the seeds of salvation and watch God provide the growth!
• Expect God’s harvest of real life—eternal life!
• Work for the benefit of all—don’t get tired, avoid giving up and quitting when weary in the work but not of it.  God will provide rest when needed. Trust Him.

OUR MOTIVATION:

• Be led by God’s Holy Spirit in all the details of life.
• Desire and seek to obey God’s Law of Love. “Love God.  Love Others”. 
• Realize our sins of forcing our rules on others.  This does not please God—at all!
• Live for Jesus who fulfilled the law of God’s love completely, once and for all!
• Have the courage to live by faith knowing we will share in the sufferings of Christ.
• Humbly and gratefully boast only of our crucified Christ who freely gave His life for ours, setting us free to live a life redeemed from our sins.  So we forgive others.
• Seriously focus on “what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life!”  God guides all we think, say and do in Jesus Name for His glory!  Yes!

Lord,

Cleanse our hearts, renew our minds, refresh our souls with your tender new mercies for today, and restore the joy of your salvation at work within us.  Then send us to freely give what you have given to us—the way home to you!

In Jesus Name, Amen

“Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave
    and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God
    and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor
    and gave him the name above all other names,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father. –Philippians 2:3-11, NLT

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God.”  Micah 6:8, NIV

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17, NIV

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) Now we learn that believers can “fall from the gift of grace” offered to us by God through Jesus Christ when we turn inward and serve only our own self interests.  We learn that we are continually “in production” of the characteristics of Christ who demonstrated how to love God back and how to love each other.  We have not arrived.  Production is not complete.  No one is perfect.  However, we are perfectly forgiven by Jesus who came to serve the world in ways the world had never seen or heard.  We have no excuse.  Jesus demonstrated how to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God”.

Galatians 5, The Message

The Life of Freedom

Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.

^2-3 I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law.

^4-6 I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.

^7-10 You were running superbly! Who cut in on you, deflecting you from the true course of obedience? This detour doesn’t come from the One who called you into the race in the first place. And please don’t toss this off as insignificant. It only takes a minute amount of yeast, you know, to permeate an entire loaf of bread. Deep down, the Master has given me confidence that you will not defect. But the one who is upsetting you, whoever he is, will bear the divine judgment.

^11-12 As for the rumor that I continue to preach the ways of circumcision (as I did in those pre-Damascus Road days), that is absurd. Why would I still be persecuted, then? If I were preaching that old message, no one would be offended if I mentioned the Cross now and then—it would be so watered-down it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. Why don’t these agitators, obsessive as they are about circumcision, go all the way and castrate themselves!

^13-15 It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?

^16-18 My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are contrary to each other, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

* * *

^19-21 It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.

^22-23 But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

^23-24 Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

^25-26 Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Like most of us in trying times; the Galatians had fallen back into production of the old ways of thought and action—the inferior by-products of evil.  Paul points out the difference so they will know and understand how the old ways were destroying what they had gained in Christ—real freedom!  Paul gives an list of the “same old” sins to avoid while telling of the “fruits of God’s characteristics to imitate and obtain as we walk in freedom from sin with God’s Holy Spirit helping us! He outlines the obvious differences between living a life that produces the fruits of God’s character in us, as demonstrated in Christ who set us free, versus the life of bondage of the sin evil produces in us when we turn to satisfying self.

“But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.” (v.22-23)

“Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.” Galatians 5:25, NLT

As we relate to people and circumstances in our daily walk, let’s use Paul’s “list” of fruit bearing as a filter for our behavior before responding. As we strive to develop the “mind of Christ,” rely on the gift of God’s Holy Spirit who lives in us ready to help us! We cannot do this by ourselves.  That’s why we humble ourselves before God as we walk humbly with God.  He produces in us what we cannot—holiness.    

“That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.” (v. 26)

God, through Jesus, surrounds us with His grace. As believers “in production” to be more like Jesus, we also become the distribution depot of God’s gifts to those we relate to daily. God wants no one to leave our presence empty-handed. Some people find the gift of salvation through what we say about Jesus. For others the gifts might be merely a kind word, a good deed, delivered with selfless graciousness. But all the gifts are from God. 

While we are still “in production” our task is to stand firmly in faith, secured in God’s grace, surrounded by His goodness with gratitude, while freely giving to all who come our way with what has so freely been given to us—love, mercy, and grace with redemption.  This is true freedom!

Lord,

Thank you for saving my soul and making me whole. I have not arrived but I’m not where I was when you found me and began your salvation work in me.  May your Kingdom come, your will be done.  To You be the all the glory, honor, and praise!

In Jesus Name, Amen

As children growing up in the fifties, we heard this threat after misbehaving and receiving the mom version of punishment until dad came home.  The “mom version” was enough for me!  In fact, I was “that child” who knew the minute I had done wrong and sidelined myself as a child as my own punishment.  If that wasn’t enough, the “mom look” was well enough to stop my sarcastic words and obnoxious deeds.  But for my much younger brother, it was different.  He pushed the limits of mom’s patience and crossed the line of arrogance without guilt.  Seven years older than my brother, I tried to warn him to “slow his roll” as Mom resorted to, “you just wait ‘til your father comes home.” 

As children we learn how to behave well in the presence of adults.  But as soon as their attention is drawn away or they left the room, previous questionable behavior resumed.  “Out of sight, out of mind” was our childish thinking.  What parents don’t see is not really happening—a child’s theology.

Paul reminds the Galatian church that God, the Father does know their hearts and sees their behaviors even if they do not acknowledge Him.  They are going back to their old ways since Paul is no longer physically with them to teach and convict them of their worship of other gods.  They are leaning into the old superstitions; getting their advice from the world instead of God. “What Paul (or God) doesn’t see isn’t really happening” seems to be their own childish way of thinking which is now making them slaves to evil once again. 

Galatians 4, The Message

^1-3 Let me show you the implications of this. As long as the heir is a minor, he has no advantage over the slave. Though legally he owns the entire inheritance, he is subject to tutors and administrators until whatever date the father has set for emancipation. That is the way it is with us: When we were minors, we were just like slaves ordered around by simple instructions (the tutors and administrators of this world), with no say in the conduct of our own lives.

^4-7 But when the time arrived that was set by God the Father, God sent his Son, born among us of a woman, born under the conditions of the law so that he might redeem those of us who have been kidnapped by the law. Thus we have been set free to experience our rightful heritage. You can tell for sure that you are now fully adopted as his own children because God sent the Spirit of his Son into our lives crying out, “Papa! Father!” Doesn’t that privilege of intimate conversation with God make it plain that you are not a slave, but a child? And if you are a child, you’re also an heir, with complete access to the inheritance.

^8-11 Earlier, before you knew God personally, you were enslaved to so-called gods that had nothing of the divine about them. But now that you know the real God—or rather since God knows you—how can you possibly subject yourselves again to those tin gods? For that is exactly what you do when you are intimidated into scrupulously observing all the traditions, taboos, and superstitions associated with special days and seasons and years. I am afraid that all my hard work among you has gone up in a puff of smoke!

^12-13 My dear friends, what I would really like you to do is try to put yourselves in my shoes to the same extent that I, when I was with you, put myself in yours. You were very sensitive and kind then. You did not come down on me personally. You were well aware that the reason I ended up preaching to you was that I was physically broken, and so, prevented from continuing my journey, I was forced to stop with you. That is how I came to preach to you.

^14-16 And don’t you remember that even though taking in a sick guest was most troublesome for you, you chose to treat me as well as you would have treated an angel of God—as well as you would have treated Jesus himself if he had visited you? What has happened to the satisfaction you felt at that time? There were some of you then who, if possible, would have given your very eyes to me—that is how deeply you cared! And now have I suddenly become your enemy simply by telling you the truth? I can’t believe it.

¹⁷ Those heretical teachers go to great lengths to flatter you, but their motives are rotten. They want to shut you out of the free world of God’s grace so that you will always depend on them for approval and direction, making them feel important.

* * *

^18-20 It is a good thing to be passionate in doing good, but not just when I am in your presence. Can’t you continue the same concern for both my person and my message when I am away from you that you had when I was with you? Do you know how I feel right now, and will feel until Christ’s life becomes visible in your lives? Like a mother in the pain of childbirth. Oh, I keep wishing that I was with you. Then I wouldn’t be reduced to this blunt, letter-writing language out of sheer frustration.

^21-31 Tell me now, you who have become so enamored with the law: Have you paid close attention to that law? Abraham, remember, had two sons: one by the slave woman and one by the free woman. The son of the slave woman was born by human plotting; the son of the free woman was born by God’s promise. This illustrates the very thing we are dealing with now. The two births represent two ways of being in relationship with God. One is from Mount Sinai in Arabia. It corresponds with what is now going on in Jerusalem—a slave life, producing slaves as offspring. This is the way of Hagar. In contrast to that, there is an invisible Jerusalem, a free Jerusalem, and she is our mother—this is the way of Sarah. Remember what Isaiah wrote:

Rejoice, barren woman who bears no children,
    shout and cry out, woman who has no birth pangs,
Because the children of the barren woman
    now surpass the children of the chosen woman.

Isn’t it clear, friends, that you, like Isaac, are children of promise? In the days of Hagar and Sarah, the child who came from faithless plotting (Ishmael) harassed the child who came—empowered by the Spirit—from the faithful promise (Isaac). Isn’t it clear that the harassment you are now experiencing from the Jerusalem heretics follows that old pattern? There is a Scripture that tells us what to do: “Expel the slave mother with her son, for the slave son will not inherit with the free son.” Isn’t that conclusive? We are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Pau’s heart is broken for them knowing that their behavior is breaking the heart of God who gave His Son to set them free from the enslavement and bondage of sin.

“Just wait ‘til your Father comes home to take us home with Him” …  But why wait, when we as children of God, heirs with Christ, can have it all right now because of His love, mercy, and grace?!  We are children of Promise! 

We are redeemed and set free by Jesus Christ, son of God, Messiah come to save us from the sins that bind us.

May we LIVE as redeemed and set free people right now as our response to our loving Father!

Hold nothing back from the Father! 

Stop trying to hide foolish behaviors.  Hiding is enslaving ourselves once more by wrapping the old ropes of bondage around our being, choking our hearts, destroying our minds, and crushing our souls!

Remember how much God, the Father loves us!  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17

Lord,

Thank you for saving our souls, setting us free, with your power and help to live for you every day.

In Jesus Name, Amen

Many think, and will tell you, that to put our whole trust in Someone we cannot see is crazy and will call you crazy!  But, crazy has two different definitions:  Crazy can be the mentally deranged, especially as manifested in a wild or aggressive way. OR crazy can mean you are extremely, over the top enthusiastic. Mm.

So, we must decide just how crazy we are and who are we crazy for!  “Ain’t it great to be crazy” the song tells us.  Okay, we’re all crazy—but seriously, for who and for what reason?  Are we crazy—extremely, over the top, enthusiastic for the One and Only who was so crazy with love for us that He gave His life for ours?  Or are we crazed mentally by what the wild world of evil thinks is sane? Are we aggressively drawn into all that is dark? Ah, we are so easily distracted even as believers!  Where is our focus?

It has been said that if Paul was alive today, we’d be getting a letter!

Galatians 3, The Message

Trust in Christ, Not the Law

You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a spell on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.

^2-4 Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!

^5-6 Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? Don’t these things happen among you just as they happened with Abraham? He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God.

^7-8 Is it not obvious to you that persons who put their trust in Christ (not persons who put their trust in the law!) are like Abraham: children of faith? It was all laid out beforehand in Scripture that God would set things right with non-Jews by faith. Scripture anticipated this in the promise to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed in you.”

^9-10 So those now who live by faith are blessed along with Abraham, who lived by faith—this is no new doctrine! And that means that anyone who tries to live by his own effort, independent of God, is doomed to failure. Scripture backs this up: “Utterly cursed is every person who fails to carry out every detail written in the Book of the law.”

^11-12 The obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him. Doing things for God is the opposite of entering into what God does for you. Habakkuk had it right: “The person who believes God, is set right by God—and that’s the real life.” Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping, a fact observed in Scripture: “The one who does these things [rule-keeping] continues to live by them.”

^13-14 Christ redeemed us from that self-defeating, cursed life by absorbing it completely into himself. Do you remember the Scripture that says, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”? That is what happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross: He became a curse, and at the same time dissolved the curse. And now, because of that, the air is cleared and we can see that Abraham’s blessing is present and available for non-Jews, too. We are all able to receive God’s life, his Spirit, in and with us by believing—just the way Abraham received it.

* * *

^15-18 Friends, let me give you an example from everyday affairs of the free life I am talking about. Once a person’s will has been signed, no one else can annul it or add to it. Now, the promises were made to Abraham and to his descendant. You will observe that Scripture, in the careful language of a legal document, does not say “to descendants,” referring to everybody in general, but “to your descendant” (the noun, note, is singular), referring to Christ. This is the way I interpret this: A will, earlier signed by God, is not annulled by an addendum attached 430 years later, thereby negating the promise of the will. No, this addendum, with its instructions and regulations, has nothing to do with the promised inheritance in the will.

^18-20 What is the point, then, of the law, the attached addendum? It was a thoughtful addition to the original covenant promises made to Abraham. The purpose of the law was to keep a sinful people in the way of salvation until Christ (the descendant) came, inheriting the promises and distributing them to us. Obviously this law was not a firsthand encounter with God. It was arranged by angelic messengers through a middleman, Moses. But if there is a middleman as there was at Sinai, then the people are not dealing directly with God, are they? But the original promise is the direct blessing of God, received by faith.

^21-22 If such is the case, is the law, then, an anti-promise, a negation of God’s will for us? Not at all. Its purpose was to make obvious to everyone that we are, in ourselves, out of right relationship with God, and therefore to show us the futility of devising some religious system for getting by our own efforts what we can only get by waiting in faith for God to complete his promise. For if any kind of rule-keeping had power to create life in us, we would certainly have gotten it by this time.

^23-24 Until the time when we were mature enough to respond freely in faith to the living God, we were carefully surrounded and protected by the Mosaic law. The law was like those Greek tutors, with which you are familiar, who escort children to school and protect them from danger or distraction, making sure the children will really get to the place they set out for.

^25-27 But now you have arrived at your destination: By faith in Christ you are in direct relationship with God. Your baptism in Christ was not just washing you up for a fresh start. It also involved dressing you in an adult faith wardrobe—Christ’s life, the fulfillment of God’s original promise.

In Christ’s Family

^28-29 In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ. Also, since you are Christ’s family, then you are Abraham’s famous “descendant,” heirs according to the covenant promises.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

It’s all about Jesus!

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” –Jesus, Matthew 5:17-20, NIV

The Law was given by God to protect us and convict us of our sins. 

Jesus was given as a demonstration of God’s love to saves us from the punishment for our sins.

The Law shows us our unrighteousness. Jesus fulfilled the law by making us right with God by His sacrifice for our unrighteousness.  “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21

Crazy, right?  What we deserve is punishment.  What we receive is God’s gift of mercy and grace—and Grace wins every time over rule keeping and self-improvement plans we humans devise as our way to get right with God.  We are crazy to think we can do life without Jesus who is Life eternal!

Only by believing in Jesus are we made right with God.  “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”—Jesus, John 14:6

This crazy love is enthusiastically given by God’s gift of grace. 

We respond with crazy love for Jesus and enthusiastic trust and faith in God

Lord,

Thank for the letters of Paul, inspired by your Holy Spirit, that teach us how to love you back with all our hearts, minds, and souls!  What the world thinks is crazy is abundant life forever!  I choose you.  I choose Life.

In Jesus Name, Amen

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

“I was one way, now I’m different.” From God’s Word, this is the epitome of Paul’s testimony of God’s plan to rescue him through Jesus’ sacrifice. This is the simple testimony of all who truly believe, repent, trust, and follow the One who changes everything about us after the rescue as we daily give our lives to Him as an offering of praise and submission to His will and holiness. 

Before Jesus’s rescue of Paul, who was formally known as Saul, Paul was a “holy terror” in every way.  Saul stormed into towns and villages with an angry vengeance based on a false religious philosophy.  This self-proclaimed Superman of the Jewish religious drove him to pull believers in Jesus out to the town squares for all to see his power over them.  Saul and his militia would then harass, humiliate, and beat the innocent before throwing them in to jail.  By persecuting believers, Saul thought he could stop God’s Plan of rescue for all people!  But Saul was wrong—so wrong!  We know now that these persecutions only caused the church Jesus established to grow in even greater numbers!

Saul, a proud Jew of heritage and tradition, was met on the road to Damacus by Jesus, Himself, who revealed Truth to Saul.  Jesus called Saul out into the Light of His Presence, blinding him to the world and himself for a few days, while asking, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”  (See Acts)  Jesus taught earlier that what we do to others we are doing to Him and this proves His words to be true!  Meeting Jesus on the road that day changed everything for Saul who become known as Paul, the Apostle of Jesus!  It is God’s Plan through Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins that the world may know and be rescued, too.   

Paul sees legalism more readily than most because that was the life he lived before knowing Jesus who rescued him from the bondage of laws and traditions that were manmade and imposed.  The Galatians are becoming tied to the law code so he sends a letter to this church to proclaim freedom in Christ!  He preaches, I used to be this way but now I am different! 

Galatians 1, The Message

^1-5 I, Paul, and my companions in faith here, send greetings to the Galatian churches. My authority for writing to you does not come from any popular vote of the people, nor does it come through the appointment of some human higher-up. It comes directly from Jesus the Messiah and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. I’m God-commissioned. So I greet you with the great words, grace and peace!We know the meaning of those words because Jesus Christ rescued us from this evil world we’re in by offering himself as a sacrifice for our sins. God’s plan is that we all experience that rescue. Glory to God forever! Oh, yes!

The Message

^6-9 I can’t believe how you waver—how easily you have turned traitor to him who called you by the grace of Christ by embracing an alternative message! It is not a minor variation, you know; it is completely other, an alien message, a no-message, a lie about God. Those who are provoking this agitation among you are turning the Message of Christ on its head. Let me be blunt: If one of us—even if an angel from heaven!—were to preach something other than what we preached originally, let him be cursed. I said it once; I’ll say it again: If anyone, regardless of reputation or credentials, preaches something other than what you received originally, let him be cursed.

^10-12 Do you think I speak this strongly in order to manipulate crowds? Or court favor with God? Or get popular applause? If my goal was popularity, I wouldn’t bother being Christ’s slave. Know this—I am most emphatic here, friends—this great Message I delivered to you is not mere human optimism. I didn’t receive it through the traditions, and I wasn’t taught it in some school. I got it straight from God, received the Message directly from Jesus Christ.

^13-16 I’m sure that you’ve heard the story of my earlier life when I lived in the Jewish way. In those days I went all out in persecuting God’s church. I was systematically destroying it. I was so enthusiastic about the traditions of my ancestors that I advanced head and shoulders above my peers in my career. Even then God had his eye on me. Why, when I was still in my mother’s womb he chose and called me out of sheer generosity! Now he has intervened and revealed his Son to me so that I might joyfully tell non-Jews about him.

^16-20 Immediately after my calling—without consulting anyone around me and without going up to Jerusalem to confer with those who were apostles long before I was—I got away to Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus, but it was three years before I went up to Jerusalem to compare stories with Peter. I was there only fifteen days—but what days they were! Except for our Master’s brother James, I saw no other apostles. (I’m telling you the absolute truth in this.)

^21-24 Then I began my ministry in the regions of Syria and Cilicia. After all that time and activity I was still unknown by face among the Christian churches in Judea. There was only this report: “That man who once persecuted us is now preaching the very message he used to try to destroy.” Their response was to recognize and worship God because of me!

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

We learned from our study of Corinthians that we are all called by God to be rescued by Jesus’ blood of sacrifice for our sins.  We are called to speak His Truth so others will know and  be reconnected to God through Jesus, His Son.  We, as the called, are changing moment by moment as we give ourselves to Jesus who transforms us daily to be more and more like Him.

The book of Galatians was written by the confident hand of one who had known slavery to a law code of behaviors.  Paul, set free by Jesus’ salvation, now declares, and defines true freedom in Christ. It is by the grace of Jesus that we are saved—not by following all the laws.  Paul wrote these words to leaders in the church who were insisting that it was necessary to follow a law or code in order to be saved.  It is by God’s grace alone that we are saved, Paul will proclaim.

Many of the early Christians were Jewish Christians who were accustomed to following a law. They were used to being told what to do with when and how to do it.  Though they had accepted the gift of grace offered by Christ on the cross, some were falling away—substituting man’s works for God’s gift. Paul recognized this for what it was—legalism.

Legalism is not unique to the Galatians. Any time the gospel has been preached, there have been those who contend it is too good to be true. It’s not enough to be saved by faith, argues the legalist, we must earn God’s approval. Some teach that we earn God’s favor by what we know (intellectualism). Others insist we are saved by what we do (moralism). Still others claim that salvation is determined by what we feel (emotionalism).

Max Lucado writes;

“However you package it, Paul contests, legalism is heresy. Any gospel other than the pure gospel is anathema (abomination). Salvation comes only through the cross—no additions, no alterations.

We are free in Christ. “Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). Galatians is a document of freedom. As you read, note the confidence of the writer. His hand doesn’t shake, his conviction doesn’t waver, his belief doesn’t falter.”

But wait, there’s more! Paul will open the door to learning more about our freedom in Christ:

• Salvation comes by grace, not works.
• We should bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
• We will reap in life what we have sown in life.

If our salvation was judged by what we do, how high we jumped, or what score we attained on the tests of life; then we fail miserably by man’s standards or certainly be boastful and arrogant.  Jesus’ resurrection would not mean a thing.  Instead, we are saved by His grace alone! This truth sets us free with a desire to be like the One who rescued us!

How do I know?  I was one way and now I’m different—all because of Jesus who rescued me and set me free.  This becomes a daily difference making transformation as I give myself to Him! I will meditate on this freedom all day today and be grateful.

Lord,

Thank you for daily cleansing my soul, renewing my mind, refreshing my soul, and restoring the joy and peace of knowing that your salvation is at work transforming me to be who you have called out and set free!

In Jesus Name, Amen