Galatians Chapters 3-6 - CHrist in Youth Conference
I was at CIY during this week. I tried to do the quiet time each day, but missed two chapters. Please forgive me. If you have not finished out Galatians - finish it on your own and get ready to roll into Ephesians.
Galatians 3: I really love this text! The law makes nothing perfect! On it's own, the law is meaningless, because all it does is put us on even keel at ground zero in the grand scheme or righteousness. Nothing more. If we were to follow the law flawlessly, which is impossible, all it would do is put us at ground zero in the grand scheme of righteousness. Where as Jesus, and because of his sacrifice, has eradicated that system, now living by the law only helps us to build up from ground zero. No longer is our focus to cover up these holes we keep digging ourselves into: Christ has covered them. Because of that, it is now our responsibility to build up from there. You gotta have faith in Christ; it is the foundational thing that makes this whole thing work. But after that, it is crucial that we make an effort to grow and change. We will fail and stumble. The beauty about it is that our God thrives on when we fail, because it makes him great! He is great because we can get ourselves back up and continue trying...
Galatians 4: I think its funny that Paul would use as his illustration a rich boy not ready for his inheritance, and thus making him as valuable as a slave. This is funny because the thought of calling a Jew who is stuck on the old covenant a slave is offensive, considering where the Jewish nation came from (remember the Exodus?) Yet, that is the most appropriate, sensitive illustration Paul can make to being stuck on the old covenant. It's no longer about how many rules we can keep! It's about what Jesus did and we get to be different because of that. And when we stumble, Jesus covered that too!
Galatians 5: really lays it down the best way... spirit vs flesh. For as long as we live, this will be the continuous struggle in our walk. We know that living according to what feels good will lead us down a road of discontentment and unfulfilled desires. Living by the Spirit, someone other than us, we will have to leave certain things behind, but only for the better. The point here becomes this: how do I get in tune with the Spirit? It is easy to live by the flesh; we are flesh! But to live by the Spirit takes work. A never ending process which fills you more than you could ever imagine...
Galatians 6: Paul is again hitting on the fact that we are no longer bound by the law of the old covenant. Our good standing with God is not based on how good we can keep the law. Early in this chapter, he talks about taking pride in yourself and not comparing yourself to anyone else. This is important. When we grow in our walk, we have a tendency to say, "I want to be the best," and not, "I want to be my best." The first statement is a flawed system. The first consists of the grand goal being better than everyone else. While it may seem good, the problem is this: what happens if you get there? Are you done? Clearly scripture has something to say about settling and apathy. And what if you never reach your goal? Pride kicks in, and you become this selfish, discontent individual and this will hurt you. Paul calls us to do our best. To examine ourselves and put forth our best effort in pursuing Christ. If that is the goal and we do that, we will succeed no matter what anyone else does, and God will do great things with that! Paul does call us to "follow me as I follow Christ." We are called to have mentors in our walk with Christ. But even then, scripture lays out examples of mentoring where success is displayed in that the protoge surpasses the mentor. It was never meant for the protoge to say "I want to be better than my mentor." But effective mentoring is when you can hand down everything you know to someone and they can pick up where you left off. Again, we are called to put our best foot forward, not the best foot. In doing so, we must unselfishly seek out mentoring and counsel. We must set our pride aside. There is no room for selfish pride if we want to be the best we can for Christ!
5 comments:
Galatians 3: I really love this text! The law makes nothing perfect! On it's own, the law is meaningless, because all it does is put us on even keel at ground zero in the grand scheme or righteousness. Nothing more. If we were to follow the law flawlessly, which is impossible, all it would do is put us at ground zero in the grand scheme of righteousness. Where as Jesus, and because of his sacrifice, has eradicated that system, now living by the law only helps us to build up from ground zero. No longer is our focus to cover up these holes we keep digging ourselves into: Christ has covered them. Because of that, it is now our responsibility to build up from there. You gotta have faith in Christ; it is the foundational thing that makes this whole thing work. But after that, it is crucial that we make an effort to grow and change. We will fail and stumble. The beauty about it is that our God thrives on when we fail, because it makes him great! He is great because we can get ourselves back up and continue trying...
Galatians 4: I think its funny that Paul would use as his illustration a rich boy not ready for his inheritance, and thus making him as valuable as a slave. This is funny because the thought of calling a Jew who is stuck on the old covenant a slave is offensive, considering where the Jewish nation came from (remember the Exodus?) Yet, that is the most appropriate, sensitive illustration Paul can make to being stuck on the old covenant. It's no longer about how many rules we can keep! It's about what Jesus did and we get to be different because of that. And when we stumble, Jesus covered that too!
Galatians 5: really lays it down the best way... spirit vs flesh. For as long as we live, this will be the continuous struggle in our walk. We know that living according to what feels good will lead us down a road of discontentment and unfulfilled desires. Living by the Spirit, someone other than us, we will have to leave certain things behind, but only for the better. The point here becomes this: how do I get in tune with the Spirit? It is easy to live by the flesh; we are flesh! But to live by the Spirit takes work. A never ending process which fills you more than you could ever imagine...
Galatians 6: Paul is again hitting on the fact that we are no longer bound by the law of the old covenant. Our good standing with God is not based on how good we can keep the law. Early in this chapter, he talks about taking pride in yourself and not comparing yourself to anyone else. This is important. When we grow in our walk, we have a tendency to say, "I want to be the best," and not, "I want to be my best." The first statement is a flawed system. The first consists of the grand goal being better than everyone else. While it may seem good, the problem is this: what happens if you get there? Are you done? Clearly scripture has something to say about settling and apathy. And what if you never reach your goal? Pride kicks in, and you become this selfish, discontent individual and this will hurt you. Paul calls us to do our best. To examine ourselves and put forth our best effort in pursuing Christ. If that is the goal and we do that, we will succeed no matter what anyone else does, and God will do great things with that! Paul does call us to "follow me as I follow Christ." We are called to have mentors in our walk with Christ. But even then, scripture lays out examples of mentoring where success is displayed in that the protoge surpasses the mentor. It was never meant for the protoge to say "I want to be better than my mentor." But effective mentoring is when you can hand down everything you know to someone and they can pick up where you left off. Again, we are called to put our best foot forward, not the best foot. In doing so, we must unselfishly seek out mentoring and counsel. We must set our pride aside. There is no room for selfish pride if we want to be the best we can for Christ!
Post a Comment