Spending time in Galatians... Are we trying to add to God's grace?

"But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace" - Galatians 1:15

God's grace is the most beautiful thing I have ever experienced. It takes my breath away, every time, without fail. It's far deeper than anything I have ever experienced, to me it is like the ocean, whenever I dive in there are new depths to be explored. I am sure I will never reach the bottom but every dive widens my perceptions of his grace and enlarges my view of God.
I remember when I first caught a glimpse of his grace. I remember falling to the ground, tears streaming down my face into the carpet as I was floored by his grace, that God would love me, is unfathomable. And while I missed it at the time, I am still amazed at the grace of God that brought me to that moment, where through tear stained eyes, face buried in a carpet, I first glimpsed his grace. Louie Giglio once said "Every glimpse of God is a glimpse of grace". He is so wonderful and holy and I am so undeserving and wretched, that to allow me to see even a glimpse of God was preceded with more than just a glimpse of his grace. As a parent I am continually awed and humbled by new depths of his grace. I look at my kids and realize I want to give them every good thing and would do anything for them, and softly like a whisper, God humbles my heart. That I could ever think my father heart is even but a faint blurry reflection of the Father's heart that created me. And again I am awed by his grace, that he would feel that way for me, oh what grace.

I love God's grace. My daughter is named after it. My life is shaped by it. My heart is stirred by it, and my breath taken away by it. Yet like the Galatians, in my foolishness I try to add to it.

No-one can add to the grace of God, there is nothing short or incomplete in the work of the cross, yet so often, like the Galatians, we try and add something more. It's always subtle, it's nearly always well-intentioned... and its always ugly. That we could hope to add to the grace of God, when the best we bring is nothing but filthy rags compared to the beauty of his grace.
It took me a long time and a good amount of introspection, prayer and God's spirit working in me to see the subtleties of how I try to add to God's perfect grace.

"For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God's grace." - Galatians 5:4

The Galatians tried to add to the grace of God by adding back in the need for circumcision, and thus relying on the law instead of God's grace. In general I think most people in the west would feel they are more guilty of trying to wear out the grace of God, than add to it, and mostly I think they are right. I have needed to return to the grace of God so many times it amazes me that I am welcomed back, even though I know from his word that his grace is endless.
But there are pitfalls I have fallen into and I see others stumble on as well, where we unintentionally try to add to God's perfect grace. The more I know these pitfalls, the more I avoid them and instead fall rightly before the grace of God. So lets spend some time, looking at how to avoid trying to fruitlessly add to the grace of God...

Our motivations

Last time in Galatians we looked at how our faith is meant to express itself though love, or as James put it, a faith without work is dead, as faith should produce works of love. But if we are honest sometimes our works are not produced by faith, sometimes it is not faith expressed through love, but works produced from our own sinful self. Sometimes it is guilt, or duty but the motivations of our heart are important to God.

"Man looks at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart" - 1 Samuel 16:7 

When we produce works it is the motivation of out hearts that God see's and shows if we are trying to add to the grace of God.
When you tithe, is it an act of duty? Or routine? Or compulsion? Or peer-pressure? Or religious tradition? Or sense of duty? Or is it as God asks for, a joyful heart, an outward pouring of a heart so in love with God, so filled with the spirit, that it eagerly gives, joyfully and generously? I want a heart like this but so often I know I fall short, and bring an offering that is not pleasing to my heavenly father, and again I find I need God's grace.
When you talk to someone about God, when you speak up and acknowledge you are a Christian in the workplace, is it because you know you should? Or is it because the weight of failing to speak up in the past has reached a tipping point and you feel you must? Is it because you feel desperately resigned to the fact that if you don't no-one else will? Or is it simply because you learned in church you should? Or is it as Paul talks about in Galatians, faith expressing itself through love, does it come from a heart moved by the spirit, moved by God's love for people who need the grace and the cross of Christ in their life? I want to have a heart that burns with love for people who don't know God, who have yet to dive in to the ocean of his grace, that I cannot remain silent. But too often I speak out, trying to boldly proclaim in love but often mumbling through, out of duty, and again I find I need God's grace.

In Galatians, Paul issues the church a direct challenge about the out-pouring of their hearts towards him, it is one of the verses that struck me most as I spent some time in Galatians for this series...

"Surely you remember that I was sick when I first brought you the Good News. But even though my condition tempted you to reject me, you did not despise me or turn me away. No, you took me in and cared for me as though I were an angel from God or even Christ Jesus himself. Where is that joyful and grateful spirit you felt then? I am sure you would have taken out your own eyes and given them to me if it had been possible. Have I now become your enemy because I am telling you the truth?" - Galatians 4:13-16

Wow. I want to have faith that expresses itself through love like the Galatians once did. That my pitiful, man-made, duty driven works could ever be more than dirty rags compared to the grace-driven, faith expressed through love that Paul talks about here. Father give me a joyful and grateful spirit, that I never try and add my man-made works to your grace again.

Religious Traditions

Another area the church in particular can be guilty of trying to add to God's grace is religious traditions. In particular there are two specific area's where I worry we have turned essential heart-driven responses to God into overly religious, duty driven traditions, where we are in danger of falling into the trap of doing them because it is the "christian thing to do" and not out of faith expressed in love. Where we are in danger of trying to add to God's grace, worthless traditions, where he desires, spirit-filled hearts yearning for him.

The first, is communion.
Most churches do communion. We turn down the lights, slow-down the music and try and produce an emotional response to what we are meant to be doing, but when I look at scripture I can't but help think we have missed something. The act of communion as we see it in the new testament was remembering Christ's sacrifice for us, the bread, his body broken for us and the wine, his blood shed for us.

But can an act of remembrance really only meant to be done in church, when the minister reminds us and leads us to. I understand the reasoning behind doing it in church, the desire to take that special command and keep it special, brought out only on Sunday, or every other Sunday. I understand the good intentions behind it, and the scriptural warning that led to it becoming a tradition. Paul did warn the church in Corinth not to to cheapen it, reminding them to "examine themselves" and that those who "eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgement on themselves" and that anyone taking the bread and cup of the Lord "unworthily is guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord"(1 Cor 11:27-29). I am grateful for the good intentions and the desire to keep people from the danger presented by Paul here but I feel somewhere we went too far, and locked it away behind a wall of religious tradition and service. We tried to give it the weight it deserved but instead added the extra weight of a religious experience, a manufactured "holy-factor", when in fact we just need faith expressed though love. We made it service driven not spirit driven and when I look at the scriptures and see how it poured out of the lives of the believers in the early church, I long to reclaim communion as an act of faith expressing itself in love, and not simply part of a Sunday service.

"They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts."- Acts 2: 42-46

I want to be a church where believers meet up, often, in their homes to break bread together, to remember the death and the resurrection together, to remember Christ's love for us on the cross, as an outpouring of love coming from faith. I fear that we have turned it in to a religious experience where we come out of duty, oblivious to the true holiness of what we are doing, as we try and add to the grace of God, through our religious act of communion.

The second, is baptism.
I will say less on this, I think baptism is sometimes handled well in the church, but other times it is handled horribly. It is a much disputed and hot topic that deserves it's own study if not series, but I do worry that it can and for many has become a religious tradition. I worry that similar to communion, sometimes it has been well-intentioned actions that have turned it into a religious experience or tradition, and that so often the motivations behind it are off. I worry for some, it is a desperate attempt to try and add to God's grace, when in fact they are really being washed clean by it.

The standards we uphold

In Galatians, Paul tells of his need to rebuke Peter because out of fear of criticism, Peter started shunning those who were not circumcised, and I think sometimes we can do this in subtle ways, where our own standards, mindsets, actions or expectations try to limit the grace of God. In this example Peter was shunning fellow Christians because they were not circumcised, and within the church we must be careful not to do the same. The grace of God does not fall short for those who believe and have faith in the cross of Christ, but sometimes our projections of grace fall short of God's grace and we end up dividing ourselves based on societal standards and lifestyle norms, when in fact we are all under the grace of God.

Sometimes I think we also sell the grace of God short in our thoughts. Have you ever met someone and without meaning to, you just didn't see them accepting Christ and almost wrote them off in your mind. When I first started work out of uni, I was assigned a mentor in the company, and he was a lovely chap, friendly and helpful but he was also an emphatic God-hating atheist, and I remember catching myself thinking, "Good luck saving that one". What a foolish thought. As if the grace of God could meet someone it would even remotely struggle to save. Did I somehow think that the grace of God would need extra help or to be in TURBO mode to break through to him more than it did to me? God really humbled me in this experience and again I found myself in need of his grace. Do you ever pre-judge how far God's grace might go, do you have strategic thoughts about who is the best target for evangelism, as if the grace of God needs our human tactics or analysis of who it might best reach.

And sometimes we simply just maintain standards that differ from God's standards. Maybe you impose these standards on yourself, always trying to reach worldly goals or standards of success. Or maybe you measure others by these standards, measuring them up against an earthly standard of success, or even subconsciously weighing their worth by the weights of the world.

When we strive to maintain, uphold or measure with standards that are not God's standards, we put value in something that is not what God put's value in. We put value in something that is in addition to the grace of God.

I am in love with God's grace, and I need it more than I know. But I am tired of trying to add to it or limit it. I want to live in the spirit by the grace of God. I want to be guided by the holy spirit, in the ocean of his grace, to explore it's depths, and to lead others to it. I want to baptize others through his grace, in to his holy spirit.

"Dear bothers and sisters, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen" - Galatians 6:18

Spending time in Galatians... Who are we really living for?

In Galatians Paul is combating a new "gospel" that had crept in to the church, in Galatia the problem was people were adding back in to the gospel the need for circumcision, but by adding back in the law, they took away the freedom from the law that Christ brought. I am sure it seemed like a harmless addition to the church in Galatia at the time, akin to adding an additional safety rope, a spare tether, what harm could it bring...

"Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. I'll say it again... For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God's grace." - Galatians 5: 2-4

Paul could see the harm these new "gospels" brought, he could see their destructive and seductive power on the church, "They sneaked in to spy on us and take away the freedom we have in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 2:4), and he was determined to call the church back to the only true gospel.

In recent years I have become aware of a different "gospel" that has sneaked in to the church in the west, like in Galatia it is a gospel that has been shaped by the culture surrounding it. But instead off adding back in the law, to the gospel the church in Galatia first accepted, we have put the gospel we first accepted behind glass, to be read sparingly, from a distance and only through the lenses of modern society. The problem with a lens is it's designed to distort, and in some cases this is useful, for instance, when our vision is not perfect and we see things blurry or distorted our glasses can counter-distort the light coming to our eyes in a way that makes the new final image correct. But when our vision is perfect like God's word is perfect, all they will do is obscure what is there, masking truth. And the biggest problem, I can testify to this, is the lenses have become so comfortable, that I didn't notice I was wearing them.
Over the last few years, I have been greatly blessed by some well-known church leaders, who have been faithful to the word of God, who have refused to accept a distorted version of the gospel, they have smashed the lenses, removed the gospel from behind the glass, and as Paul said to the church in Galatia, they "refused to give in to them for a single moment... to preserve the truth of the gospel message for you". And I am glad they have, through their faithful teaching of the bible I started to see I was also reading God's word through the lenses of modern society, and these lenses are many and easily combined to distort the bible even more. For me the toughest lenses to remove, and ones my eyes still fight to restore at times, were the lenses of comfort, safety and self-preservation.
But to some of you this may sound like quite a sensationalist claim or an overreaction, and this is not my intention or desire, I never want to stray from God's word, or add anything to it. So, before we look at Paul's teaching in Galatia that challenges some of the lenses of modern society, I will give you a few examples of ways the church has commonly read verses through a lens that distorts the gospel, and the damage I believe it has done the church.

"You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth?"

The first collection of passages I want to look at that we have distorted into a hugely dangerous lie was first pointed out to me through Francis Chan and his book "Crazy Love". Let's start with the letter to the church in Laodicea in Revelation 3...

“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.’” - Revelation 3:15-17

It is from this passage that we coined the phrase "lukewarm Christian",  but its a mystery as to why. I remember hearing the phrase at a fairly young age and assuming that it must be a valid type of Christian, obviously not a favourite child of God(clearly I hadn't read Gal 2:6), but a classic under-achiever, yet still part of the family of God... right? I remember reading it in my teens, while finding being a Christian a bit tough, especially Paul's teaching(who at the time I considered a bit of a kill-joy), and I remember thinking the verse sounded a little harsh, probably because I quite liked the idea of being a bit "lukewarm", it suited me well. I wasn't overly looking forward to being drenched in God's spit but as long as I was still drenched in his grace, after all I "believed", it didn't sound like to big a deal to me, I was "lukewarm and loving it"...
And I am sure I am not alone here but how did we ever remotely begin to think the "lukewarm Christian" the letter warns us about was ever under salvation. I mean the letter makes it pretty clear... "wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked." Does that sound like a Christian to you? The lukewarm will be spat out the mouth of God, and yet we invent the concept of a lukewarm Christian and somehow it seems appealing to us...
But how? Well, it's easy when we read the rest of scripture through a similarly distorting lens, capable of magnifying some verses to incredible proportions and shrinking others down till they are barely read at all. Our salvation is by faith and not works, this is spelled out so clearly in the gospel, even in Galatians Paul says...

"Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ"(Gal 2:16)

and

"so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.(Gal 3:14)

Our salvation through faith is clear, but what does it mean to have faith in Christ? Does it mean a quick prayer and that's it? Does it mean mere human thought or agreement? Is it like modern culture where it is simply a case of picking an alternative fact in your head? It's very tempting to reduce faith down to something easy, something more akin to a vague belief or acknowledgement, but is this what biblical faith is...

"What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don't show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone?.. So you see, faith by itself isn't enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. Now someone may argue, 'Some people have faith; others have good deeds.' But I say 'How can you show me your faith if you don't have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.' You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. How foolish! Don't you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be right with God by his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the alter? You see, his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete." - James 2:17-22

 

This verse has been debated a lot and it is understandable why, James opens claiming faith itself isn't enough and appears to contradict Paul's teaching, particularly from Romans where he stresses "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law". When we come across apparent issues with passages like this our temptation is to quickly favour one over the other, minimizing the challenge and expanding the blessing, but we really need to take a good look and see what they are really saying...
Did Paul believe in a vague faith that saves us and is James advocating works are required for salvation... This topic is covered at great length by other writers, but let's take a quick look. Firstly does Paul advocate salvation through a vague faith? I would say No. We see elsewhere that Paul is against people taking the teaching of salvation by faith too far. He condemns the idea it means we should keep on sinning to show God's grace and because after all our faith is what secures us, this is a fragrant abuse of what Paul taught and he was aware this was happening. In Galatians, Paul writes slightly differently to them making it slightly clearer for them when he writes "What is important is faith expressing itself in love."(Gal 5:6). Paul here acknowledges that faith must express itself through love, just as James teaches a type of faith that lacks any works is useless and a faith akin to that of the demons is also worthless. Faith must express itself in love, it must produce good deeds if it is to save us. Saved by faith alone, of course, but what kind of faith can save?
Finally when faced with difficult passages like this, I take huge comfort when Jesus himself is able to clear it all up for us and this brings us to another few verses I feel the lenses of comfort and ease try to obscure out of existence.

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord', will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven." - Matthew 7:21

I must have missed this verse growing up because it's a seriously important verse. It's a scary verse, it both scares me for myself and for God's wider church. The thought that at the end, there will be people who genuinely thought they had it all there, under the impression they will cruise through because they acknowledged Jesus, claimed to have faith and called on his name, and Christ will say "Away, I never knew you".

One last example of a passage that has become distorted by the lenses of modern culture is the story of the rich young ruler. You may recall it, he comes running up to Jesus to ask what he must do to get in to heaven. In fact, closer inspection of the story shows this man was quite remarkable, he seems to mostly understand who Jesus was, which few did, and when told to keep the ten commandments he claims to have kept them since he was a boy. You might expect Jesus to scoff here or point out where he has failed but instead we are told...

"Looking at the man, Jesus felt genuine love for him. 'There is still one thing you haven't done,' he told him. 'Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.'" - Mark 10:21

This was clearly a remarkable man but when faced with this calling we are told the man walked away sad because he had much wealth and seemed unwilling to part with it. This passage is not taught enough but even when it is we now arrive at a very common distortion of the passage.

"Jesus said again, 'Dear children, it is very hard to enter the kingdom of heaven. In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!'" - Mark 10:25

If you have heard this preached before it is highly likely you have heard that "the eye of the needle" was a narrow gate in to Jerusalem. Perhaps you were told this shows that humility is required to get in to heaven, as the camel would have to duck its head, maybe even bow to get through. This is so widely taught it has become difficult to tell where it came from. There is little or no evidence this gate ever existed, in fact there is more evidence the expression would have been a culturally augmented reference to a Chaldean proverb about an elephant passing though the eye of a needle, which was used to show somethings were impossible. And later on in this passage Jesus replies to the disciples saying "Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God."(Mark 10:27). If you wanted to convey something was impossible, what illustration would you use? But then again is it any wonder that a society obsessed with the American Dream and "Get Rich Quick" schemes would feel the need to distort this verse down to something we are more comfortable with?

So let's return to Galatians, given our problem is not falling back to relying on circumcision or even a reliance on the law like the church in Galatia, how useful is Paul's letter to them when it comes to addressing our post-modern "gospel"? It turns out, very. While Paul is not addressing the same false "gospel" that the western church has embraced, he still responds to the church in Galatia by strongly calling them back to the gospel of Christ, and in particular one plea he makes to the Galatians I found to be very relevant to the church today...

Who are we really living for? 

This question cuts right to the heart of the issue because it looks not at our beliefs but at our lives. Do we look like Christ, or do we look like everyone else?
Before we came to know and believe in Christ we are said to have been dead, and now we are said to be alive. There should be a huge difference between a follower of Christ and a non-believer.. is there? Who are we really living for?
Jesus describes us a light in the darkness. You don't confuse light with darkness and no increase in darkness will prevent a light from shinning in it. Does this sound like you? Who are we really living for?
"Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did."(1 John 2:6). Does your life look like Christ's? Are people amazed by your love, your servant-heartedness? Do you clothe yourself with humility yet walk in power in your workplace? Do people even know you're a Christian? Who are we really living for?

There are two answers to this question; we are either living for man or for God. We are either living to please the God of the universe, the one who created us, the one who knows us intimately, the one who sent his Son to take our punishment and die in our place on the cross, or we are living for man, living for ourselves, living to please our every desire, living to please society and those around us. The bible makes it very clear, we cannot have two masters so... Who are we really living for?

"Obviously, I'm not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ's servant." - Galatians 1:10

Passages like this challenge me deeply, and they should. We live in a society where pleasing number one is king, and we have lived like this for so long it has become ingrained in us. John Piper describes us as being so awash in sin, to the point we eventually become like fish, our heart was created to enjoy God, but now swimming in this(sin), eventually we lose the capacity to know we miss the very thing we were created to enjoy. It has become ingrained is us to serve man, to serve ourselves, and when we decide to live for God, in today's society, it will be a constant battle.
In Galatians 2 Paul tells the story of the time he had to rebuke Peter because Peter let his theology slide to match the culture around him, and started shunning those who were not circumcised. We are told "He was afraid of criticism from these people..", does this sound like you, it certainly sounds like me at times. Afraid of being criticized by society and those around us we lower the standard for truth and go along with the crowd... Who are we really living for?

"Those who are trying to force you to be circumcised want to look good to others. They don't want to be persecuted for teaching that the cross of Christ alone can save... As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world's interest in me has also died... What counts is whether we have been transformed into a new creation." - Galatians 6:12-15

The symptoms may be different as to the false "gospel" we follow, but the underlying problem is the same now as it was back then.
Fear of persecution for teaching that the cross alone can save, we all know this fear and unfortunately we have spent far too long being controlled by it. Wanting to look good to others, how often do we see the church change its stance away from the biblical to what society is clamoring for. It wants to look good, it wants to avoid persecution, and what do we end up with... A church that won't stand by God's design for marriage, a church that won't stand up for the millions of souls, wonderfully and fearfully made in God's own image, that are killed every year. A church that doesn't even hold to God's most basic design choice, male and female he created them, a church that cowers into submission when God's word comes into conflict with the society that surrounds it. We end up with secret "Christians", who won't acknowledge Christ outside their own homes, have we forgotten if we acknowledge him before men, he will acknowledge us before the Father, but if we deny him before men, he will also deny us. We end up with followers of society, where once we had followers of God.
But God's word calls us back to be followers of him, if we can see through the societal haze and the distortion of the gospel we are called to take a stand, to boast only in the cross of Christ, to crucify our worldly interests and be transformed into a new creation. Then we would be a church that stands for truth, we would be a church that displays God's design, for life and for marriage, we would be a church that displays to the world what love really is. We would be a church that shines in the darkness, we would be a church that delights in sharing in Christ's suffering to make his name known. We would be a church that represents Christ to the world, a church of people who wholeheartedly follow Christ and live by faith and not by sight.

And if that both thrills you and scares you, join the club, it's a family, it's called church and it needs to stand together. As one like the father and son are one. But also take heart, we are not alone.

"If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you... Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you... They will do all this to you because of me, for they have rejected the one who sent me... But I will send you the Advocate - the Spirit of truth." - John 15:18-26

But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son, into our hearts prompting us to call out, 'Abba Father'." - Galatians 4:4-6

 

Spending time in Galatians...

Let's spend some time in Galatians.

Why Galatians...

I love the book of Galatians, in it we read Paul's impassioned letter to the churches in Galatia. He had visited the church in Galatia previously but here Paul has heard word of the church being led astray by new doctrines and in his words "a different gospel". Paul is compelled to write to the church and call them back to the true gospel("not that there is another one" - Gal 1:7). He calls them back to the good news that they first accepted and away from the distorted gospel preaching that was sneaking in and eroding the churches in the area. Paul's love for the gospel and his urgent unwillingness to let any false teaching into the church has never been more relevant than for the church today. False teaching and man-made gospels that satisfy our every whim, promises of prosperity and an assurance of salvation through an easy feet-up life, are seeping into the western church today. With so many churches being seduced by new gospels and preachers proclaiming exactly what itching ears long to hear, the church needs Paul's letter to the Galatians more than it sadly knows.

"we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved" - Galatians 2:5

 

We also see Paul's wonderful love for the truth that our salvation is through faith. As someone who had lived his whole life trying to be saved through the law, he has a love and a way of explaining salvation through faith and freedom from the power of the law, that brings me to a place of awe and worship. Reminding me at the same time that our freedom comes because our old sinful self is crucified and we are raised with him to new life, where we are free from the power of the law and the curse of the law to now live as Jesus lived.

"Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there." - Galatians 5:24

 

Galatians is a wonderful part of scripture, filled with wonderful blessings, teachings and warnings for the church, and I haven't even covered the well-known passage on the spirit and its fruit, we will look at that in a separate post later this series.

But I want to give a final reason why Galatians is so worth our time, to spend some time in, and that is at it's core it is a letter to a church that is in a trouble. It's to a church that has forgotten the truth that first defined it, it's to a church that is redefining core gospel truths to whatever the speaker of the day is promoting, it's to a church that has forgotten at its very core that it needs Christ and the difference that having Christ brings. It's written to a church that once "got it" but is now in serious danger of becoming nothing more than a different label for the teaching and ways of those that surround it and seek to bring it down and if that's not a letter applicable to the church in the west today I don't know what is. But on top of this it is a letter that calls the church back to Christ, who's body it is meant to be a part of. Paul follows up his call back from the brink they have wondered towards, with a call to living by the spirit, what this means, what it looks like, and the power and reward it brings, and teaching like this is worth spending some time with...

"But those who live to please the spirit will harvest everlasting life from the spirit." - Galatians 6:8

 

So this series...

In this series we will take a look at the challenges God placed on my heart for me and hopefully for you as well as I spent some time in Galatians...

We will look at:

Who are we really living for?
Are we trying to add to God's grace?

How developed is Christ in our lives?

Is the spirit really directing our lives?
Does the church today better reflect Christ or the church in Galatia?

Time with God...

Do we really need another blog...

Time with God is so important, Christ himself told us that we should remain in him and he in us, without him after all we can produce no fruit. With this in mind God has challenged me to spend some extra time with him, time in his word, his living and active word, time waiting on him, letting his scripture teach and rebuke me, correcting me where I go wayward and training me in righteousness... I mean what could be more important than that, and from this time with him I am going to bring some thoughts to this blog. I will be seeking God's revelation for me but also looking to him for wisdom, so that I may write a blog not full of witty remarks or daily food diaries, but of eternal truths and challenges that I needed to hear and that maybe will be of use to you.

So what can you expect in this blog...

This blog will probably develop a few series over time, some will be short series, some will be long, some will be one off's and some will be series of series and that's where I would like to start, with what is for me the most important starting point and that is spending time in the word.

The "Spending time in" series will be about spending time in God's word, picking a particular book or part of a book depending on the length and spending some time with that book, with God's word and looking at what it teaches us and trains us in as Christians. Unlike many bible studies the blog will not go through the current book(or part of a book) chapter by chapter, or verse by verse, but each post will focus on a different teaching, training and challenge I felt God called out in me and he might be calling out in others in the body of Christ.