Category: Galatians

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. (Galatians 5:16).

Remember the story about the Indian boy who dreamt that he had two wolves fighting inside him?  He went to his grandfather, who explained that the wolves represented good and evil.  The kid asked which wolf would win the fight, and the wise grandfather replied, “The one that you feed.”

You don’t remember that story?  Oh, well, it was a story.  Trust me.

Anyway, there’s truth there.  All day long today, you are going to make choices about how to spend your time.  No matter how busy you are with the stuff that has to be done, you will still have a few minutes here and there that are at your discretion.  How will you spend those moments?  

Will you take the chance to connect with God, or with social media?  

Will you soak in a moment of worship, or check out the latest political hate rant?  

You could fire off a quick prayer for those you love (or those you don’t love but are called to love)–or you could engage in that secret sin while the angels weep.

Not to get too heavy, but you know what I’m talking about.

Beloved, living by the Spirit is not performing some huge, momentous act that rocks the cosmos and brings thousands to their knees in solemn prayer.

Although, if you can do that, please do…and tag me in the pictures.

Living by the Spirit is a thousand small choices that define you and your relationship with Jesus.  It’s the endless small sacrifices of time that demonstrate your priorities before God and Man and Self.

Caveat for my daughter and others who are getting twitchy–I’m not saying that you can never relax, or that you have to monitor and judge every moment of every day.  That way lies madness.  I’m just saying that we make choices with our time, and we should choose the things that will bring us closer to God.

So, yes, Beloved, it’s OK to watch the kitten in a teacup video…just maybe not for the 1000th time.

I gotta go now. There’s this set of 800 Star Wars memes on Facebook that I have to get back to.

I’m a mess.

Happy Monday, Beloved.

If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other  (Galatians 5:15).

We are so very good at this, aren’t we?

We know how to attack, to destroy, to scathe our enemy with a word or a post or a meme.  And we laugh and congratulate ourselves because we are so clever.

So very clever.

Why, then, do we hurt so much?

Beloved, what can you do today to bring healing and fellowship and peace?

Do it.

Happy Thursday, Beloved. 

The entire law is summed up in a single command: Love your neighbor as yourself (Galatians 5:14).

There’s that Love thing again.  

Real, honest love is completely unselfish and comes with no strings attached.  It wants what is best for the beloved, regardless of the cost to the one who loves. It “keeps no record of wrongs,” and it does not stop loving just because it has been hurt or disappointed.

That would be the way Jesus loves us.

That would be the love we are called to.

Can you imagine a world in which such love was the norm, rather than the extreme?

Neither can I.

But I wonder if, by the grace of God, we can take a step in that direction, even today.

Just one step.

By his grace; for his glory.

Happy Wednesday, Beloved.

You, my brothers, were called to be free.  But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature. Rather, serve one another in love (Galatians 5:13).

If you want to get a glimpse into a person’s character, ask them the old, “What would you do with a million dollars?” question.  Do their responses run toward stuff, travel and pleasure?  Or, after the obligatory, “Pay off my house and put the kids through college” do they start getting excited about the needs they could meet in the world around them?  

Beloved, it is not likely that God has given you a million dollars this morning–though I would certainly check.

It is definite, however, that he has given you a day.  This day.

How will you spend it?

And on whom?

Happy Tuesday, Beloved.

You, my brothers, were called to be free.  But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature… (Galatians 5:13).

Paul has been hammering us with the fact that you can’t earn your salvation; it is the gift of a gracious God.  There are no magic words, no sacred rituals, no self-sacrifice or noble deeds that can replace what Jesus did for you on the cross.  You are free from all that.

And yet

There is danger in freedom.  How easy it can be, once you have grasped the basics of our freedom in Christ, to run headlong from legalism, right past liberty, and on into license.  

Once upon a time, I had a job that occasionally involved driving a golf cart.

Details will be withheld to protect the guilty.

Anyway, the carts had regulators on the carburetors  that prevented you from driving faster than the proverbial snail.  One lovely day, a coworker discovered how to remove said regulators, and we discovered that these little carts were capable of rather astounding speeds.

We did not handle our newfound liberty well.

But when liberty gives way to license, destruction is not far behind.  

In life

or a golf cart

or your walk with God

Be free, Beloved.  But be safe.

Happy Monday. 

Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted?  In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished (Galatians 5:11).

The cross represented humiliation and failure and death.  For the Romans, it was the cruelest form of punishment, reserved for the lowest of criminals.  Jesus chose that death to identify with us in our loneliness and failure and humiliation.  He bore not only physical pain, but the horror of being separated from the Father for the first time in eternity.  He endured what we could never endure to pay a price we could never pay.  In return, when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ we take that offense upon ourselves and wear it as a badge of honor and a sign of glory.

Unless, of course, we could have earned our own way by following the rules and being “good enough.”

Then the whole thing is just pathetic and silly.

Remember, Beloved: more of you means less of him.

It really works better the other way ‘round.

Happy Friday, Beloved.

Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? (Galatians 5:11)

Good point.

Paul was fighting against his culture, and it was fighting back.

Nothing much has changed.  Beloved,  if we are men and women of God, we are called to stand against both the depravity of the world and the pseudoreligious legalism of some in the Church.  There will be push-back.  As much as we are called to live at peace with those around us, we cannot and must not “go along to get along.”

Are you prepared to fight, Beloved?  Are you willing to stake your claim on biblical truth, and hold your ground against all comers?  It won’t be pretty…but then neither was the cross.

We aren’t called to pretty.

We’re called to truth.

Stand firm, Beloved.

Happy Thursday.

I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view.  The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty (Galatians 5:10).

When  I think of all the people I don’t want to be, this guy makes my short list.  

Beloved, your Lord adores you.  He wants nothing to come between the two of you.  He promises to defend you and to crush anything that dares to pull you away from him. He’s a big brother and a jealous lover and a protective dad all rolled into One.

And then some.

You are his, so you are safe.

Rest in that today.

Happy Wednesday, Beloved.

A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough (Galatians 5:9).

Remember the I Love Lucy episode where  Lucy decided to bake her own bread?  

You don’t?  Friend, you need to spend a little quality time researching that!  Anyway, there is an episode in which Lucy wants to do things the old fashioned way, and she figures she’ll make her own bread from scratch.  She gets confused as to how much yeast she should use, so she dumps in, oh I don’t know, an entire box or something.  Then the yeast does its yeasty-thing, and the bread begins to rise.

A lot.

At some point Lucy opens the oven door and is attacked by a loaf the size of a 1972 Country Squire station wagon.

Trust me, that’s big.

It didn’t seem like a lot of yeast, but the results were devastating.

Those ideas that get into your head from, well, wherever–they seem so small.  But they’ve got a way of working through the dough of your spirit–

–You heard me, the dough of your spirit–

and causing a whole lot of damage.

You should pray more, so God will love you.

You should give more, so God will love you.

You should serve more, so God will love you.

You should do more, so God will love you.

You should be more, so God will love you.

So small, but so potent.

Sweep out the yeast, Beloved.

Happy Tuesday.

That kind of persuasion does not come from the One who calls you (Galatians 5:8).

Here’s a good rule of thumb: if it doesn’t glorify God, it isn’t from God.

Simple enough, ya?

So when those “I’m not enough.  I gotta do more God stuff and earn His love” thoughts come sneaking in, you can be sure of something.  

They may come from society,

They may come from your own mind.

They may come from our Enemy.

They do not come from God.

He hasn’t called you to be perfect.

He has called you to be his.

Happy Monday, Beloved.