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 Wednesday, Beloved.
The entire law is summed up in a single command: Love your neighbor as yourself (Galatians 5:14).
As it happens, the entire verse from Leviticus Chapter 19 goes like this: “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.”
Weird how timely that old B-I-B-L-E can be, huh?
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 that 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 Tuesday, 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 Monday, Beloved.
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).
Thank you, Veteran.
Thank you for leaving your home behind in order to protect it.
Thank you for setting aside your freedoms to help safeguard mine.
Thank you for fighting for my right to protest, even when my protest saddens or angers or disgusts you.
Thank you for shouldering a rifle, or climbing into a chopper, or racing toward a bomb blast, knowing that today could be the day that you are called to give “the last full measure of devotion.”
You must be terrified.
You go anyway.
For me.
Thank you.
You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature… (Galatians 5:13).
Back to Galatians…
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.
As I look at the demonstrations that are sprouting all over the country in the wake of the recent election, I see people using their Constitutionally-protected freedom to protest.
Great…fine…knock your socks off.
But when liberty gives way to license, demonstration becomes destruction.
In politics
In a golf cart
In your walk with God
Be free, Beloved. But be safe.
Happy Thursday.
Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior (Isaiah 43:10).
So, your candidate won/lost, and now you’re elated/depressed and excited/frightened.
OK, I get it.
Now, may I provide a little perspective?
He is not our Savior.
He is not Satan.
He is just a man.
A man who has just been given a big, big job
but still just a man.
He does not have the power to save you
or destroy you.
In fact, he has a lot less power than he realizes.
So pray for the guy–he’s gonna need it.
But save your fear and hope and worship for the only One who is worthy.
Happy Wednesday, Beloved.
For the kingdom is the Lord’s, and he rules over the nations (Psalm 22:28).
Just a reminder: no matter what today brings, your king rules over heaven and earth and sky and sea and you and me.
So…breathe deeply, Beloved.
He’s got this.
Happy Tuesday.
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 Monday, 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 Friday.
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 Thursday, Beloved.