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Daily Bible thoughts 755: Tuesday 25th November 2014:

Isaiah 51:17-23

This is the second of three ‘’Awake, awake!’’ references that come in the space of two chapters (51, 52). The first one was a prayer, asking God to do something (51:9). But in the next two references God responds by telling Jerusalem to do something (51:9, 52:1). In a sense, a prayer for revival is one in which we ask God to ‘wake up His power’. Of course God’s power is never sleeping, but, at times, it can feel like it is. So we ask God to show His muscular ‘’arm’’. Then, in revival, God wakes up His church. Only once in these two chapters does the church ask God to wake up, but twice, God tells His church to wake up. God doesn’t need waking up. It just seems to us that He does. But His church does require an awakening. We are so often like Peter and John on the Mount of Transfiguration: ‘’very sleepy’’. Only when we become ‘’fully awake’’ will we see Jesus’ ‘’glory’’ (Luke 9:32). What kind of impact would a fully awakened church have on this nation; indeed on this world? May God have mercy on us for being so dopey!

God tells Jerusalem and its people to wake up because it’s a new day. They had ‘’drunk from…the cup…’’ of God’s ‘’wrath’’ (17). This is like a cup of strong wine that overwhelms the drinker and makes him ‘’stagger’’. However, all that was in the past. Their enemies would now be made to drink from that bitter cup (22, 23).

‘’You’ve drunk the cup GOD handed you, the strong drink of his anger. You drank it down to the last drop, staggered and collapsed, dead-drunk. And nobody to help you home, no one among your friends or children to take you by the hand and put you in bed. You’ve been hit with a double dose of trouble – does anyone care? Assault and battery, hunger and death – will anyone comfort? Your sons and daughters have passed out, strewn in the streets like stunned rabbits, Sleeping off the strong drink of GOD’s anger. The rage of your God. Therefore listen, please, you with splitting headaches, You who are nursing the hangovers that didn’t come from drinking wine. Your Master, your GOD, has something to say, your God has taken up his people’s case: ‘’Look, I’ve taken back the drink that sent you reeling. No more drinking from that jug of my anger! I’ve passed it over to your abusers to drink, those who ordered you, ‘Down on the ground so we can walk all over you!’ And you had to do it. Flat on the ground, you were the dirt under their feet.’’ The Message.

It is a wonderful gospel truth that no-one in the world need fear drinking the cup of God’s anger, if they put their trust in Jesus who drank it to its dregs for them upon the cross (Matthew 26:39). This passage says that with God there can be a new day and a second chance. Ultimately, all new beginnings in the gospel stem from the cross.

Prayer: I may not know, I cannot tell, what pains He had to bear; but I believe it was for us, He hung and suffered there. Thank you Jesus.

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Daily Bible thoughts 754: Monday 24th November 2014:

Galatians 6:11-18

Some people think the illness that brought Paul into the orbit of the Galatians (4:13) was an eye condition. Here is one reason why (11; see 4:15) Paul suffered unimaginably for the gospel (2 Corinthians 11:21-33), yet he gives this fact only a cursory mention in (17). There is something profoundly touching and sad about his words. Paul was ‘’persecuted’’ (12; see 4:29) because he was cross-centred (12-15). One reason why the message of the cross leads to a backlash is because it crucifies pride. It gives you no ground for boasting about yourself and your achievements. You can’t say, ‘I’m in the Kingdom of God because of my efforts; my religious activity. I’m here because of my own merits, because I was circumcised (or some other religious thing.)’ The cross gives you nothing to ‘’boast’’ about except ‘’the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.’’ (14). Simply through faith in ‘’Christ crucified’’ (1 Corinthians 1:23, 24) people are born again and made anew by the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 5:17). We could argue that (15) sums up the entire letter to the Galatians. It is about ‘’grace’’ , ‘’mercy’’ and ‘’peace’’ (18, 16). We don’t earn anything; we don’t deserve anything because of some religious thing we do. We receive forgiveness of sins and a right standing with God through trust in Christ and His finished work on the cross. He puts His Spirit into us and makes us brand new people. ‘’When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of glory died, my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.’’ The cross of Jesus gives you nothing to brag about, and that is one reason why it gets its preachers into so much trouble. Paul knew that the very people who insisted on the need for circumcision/keeping the law, in fact did not keep the whole law themselves. They were highly selective in what they did (13)

Bill Hybels, the senior pastor of ‘Willow Creek Community Church’ ,Chicago, was attending a party on a boat one night. Just as he was stepping onto the ladder to leave, one of the guests shouted to him, ‘’Hey Bill, What’s the difference between religion and Christianity?’’ He knew that he only had a moment or two in which to answer, but this is what he said: ‘’Well, I spell religion ‘D.O.’ because it’s about all the things that people do to try to get right with God. But I spell Christianity ‘D.O.N.E.’ because it’s about what Jesus has done on the cross to make it possible for us to come to God. We just have to receive this as a gift.’’ We could say that the message of ‘Galatians’ can be summed up in terms of ‘do versus done’. The Judaizers were saying, ‘Do’. They said there are things you have to do to be saved, in addition to believing in Jesus. Notably, they argued, ‘You have to be circumcised’. Paul, however, resisted that notion. ‘It’s all been done for you on the cross by Jesus,’ he retorted.’ You simply have to receive this gift.’ In every generation of the church, people will come along who in some way pervert the truth of the gospel. They will re-shape it in their own image. The error may take on a subtle form, or it may be glaringly obvious. However it appears; whatever shape it takes, ‘Galatians’ shows that Christians must stand for the truth standing on the truth. I don’t believe we should get obsessed with erroneous teaching. Some Christians do, it seems to me, and I don’t believe it is healthy. They become spiritual ‘bloodhounds’, with their noses perpetually to the ground, sniffing out heresy wherever they can find it. They end up finding it where it isn’t! Nevertheless we need to be always on the alert, and ready to put the ‘gloves’ on for the sake of truth.

Well, we can do no better than leave the final word with Paul: ‘’May what our Master Jesus Christ gives freely be deeply and personally yours, my friends. Oh, yes! The Message.

Prayer: Thank you Father God for your amazing grace!

 

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Daily Bible thoughts 752: Thursday 20th November 2014:

 Isaiah 51:1-16

‘’Take time to remember your spiritual roots; you will be encouraged in your faith.’’ Warren W. Wiersbe: ‘With the Word’, p.483.

The opening words of this chapter mirror Matthew 6:33: ‘’Listen to me, all you who are serious about right living and committed to seeking God.’’ The Message. We can only be encouraged when we think about the miracle God did with these two ordinary people, Abraham and Sarah. May He make more of you than you ever thought you could be! May He multiply your numbers and give miraculous church growth! In the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus took 5 and 2 and multiplied them. Here He took 1 and did His multiplication work. If your life seems small in your eyes; if your church seems tiny, you can take heart as you read (2). ‘’Think of it! One solitary man when I called him, but once I blessed him, he multiplied.’’ The Message. As we have seen before in Isaiah, these promises in (1-3) relate to the near future (deliverance from Babylon) and to the distant future (the Messianic age).

In the Bible ‘’righteousness’’ and ‘’salvation’’ are closely linked. We know from the New Testament that being saved and being made righteous are synonymous. God’s righteousness and salvation were initially manifested when He overthrew Babylon. He saved His people, acting in righteousness (i.e. doing justly). He set everything right. But these verses look ultimately to the Messianic age and the world-wide spread of the gospel. God’s ‘’righteousness’’ and ‘’salvation’’ will last forever (6b, 8b), unlike the present universe, which is temporary (Psalm 102: 25, 26; Mark 13:31; Hebrews 1:10, 11). You might also like to consider 1 John 2:17.

In (7, 8) God tells His faithful people not to ‘’fear the reproach of men or be terrified by their insults.’’ (‘’Pay no attention to insults, and when mocked don’t let it get you down.’’ The Message.) Why? Because their enemies will be destroyed, but God’s ‘’righteousness’’ and ‘’salvation’’ will endure. ‘’…my salvation will last forever, my setting-things-right will never be obsolete.’’ (6b) The Message. Here are words always relevant to the church, for saved people, who seek to live right, are still the objects of derision. And the more vocal and visible we are in our witness, the more we’re going to be laughed at.

What God promises, we can ‘stand on’, and pray into fulfilment. That’s what Isaiah does in (9-11; compare verse 9 with 51:17 and 52:1). He recalls some of God’s great deeds in the past: the cutting to pieces of ‘’Rahab’’ (Egypt), and the drying up of the ‘’sea’’ (the Red Sea). Again we see the ‘second Exodus’ theme. ‘’Wake up, wake up, flex your muscles, GOD! Wake up as in the old days, in the long ago.’ The Message.

God answers prayer! He speaks again in (12-16) in response to Isaiah’s prayer in (9-11). The people of God in Isaiah’s day, lived in ‘’terror’’ of the ‘’oppressor’’ (13) – first, Assyria, then Babylon. God tells His people to stop worrying about their human enemies, and consider Him. ‘’Why should I ever anxious be, when such a God is mine?’’ ‘’What are you afraid of – or who? Some man or woman who’ll soon be dead? Some poor wretch destined for dust? You’ve forgotten me, GOD, who made you, who unfurled the skies, who founded the earth. And here you are, quaking like an aspen before the tantrums of a tyrant who thinks he can kick down the world. But what will come of the tantrums? The victims will be released before you know it. They’re not going to die. They’re not even going to go hungry.’’ The Message.

Prayer: I choose to fix my eyes on you Lord, not my fears.

 

 

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Daily Bible thoughts 751: Wednesday 19th November 2014:

 Isaiah 50

This chapter draws a contrast between ‘’Israel’s Sin and the Servant’s Obedience’’, as the heading in the NIV puts it. Where Israel failed, Jesus succeeded.

Israel failed (1-3): It is true to human nature that people regularly make trouble for themselves and then want to blame God. The Israelites in exile may well have felt that God had ‘divorced’ them, or ‘sold’ them into slavery. But the Lord denies this. He hasn’t cast His people off; they cast Him off. ‘’It’s your sins that put you here, your wrongs that got you shipped out.’’ The Message. Of course God was able to save them from all this mess. They didn’t have to go through it. His power is immeasurable (2b, 3). Think about His ‘track record’. What He has done before He can do again. They had their days of opportunity. God came to them again and again in His prophets. Isaiah was one of them. ‘’So why didn’t anyone come when I knocked? Why didn’t anyone answer when I called?’’ The Message. (You might like to compare verse 2a with Revelation 3:20)

Jesus succeeded (4-9): Here is the servant of the Lord, listening to God and obeying Him. He suffers terribly, but willingly (6) for doing so, and in the end He is vindicated. In a few verses we have a potted biography of the Lord Jesus Christ, who came in fulfilment of this prophecy. Unlike the nation of Israel (Isaiah 42:18-20), this ideal Servant of the Lord responds in obedience and faith (4, 5). He does so in spite of being beaten and mocked (Mark 14:65; 15:15, 19). He endures ‘’such opposition from sinful men’’ (Hebrews 12:3). But He is not ultimately ‘’disgraced’’ (7); the Lord ‘’vindicates’’ Him (8). ‘’ We are not told here how the servant is to be vindicated, but we know from the New Testament that the servant – Jesus – was vindicated by being resurrected from the dead (Acts 2:23-24; 3:15). If the Lord vindicates His servant, who then will bring charges against him? (verse 8). No one. Neither can anyone bring charges against the sinless Jesus – nor, for that matter, against His followers, who have been justified through faith in Him (John 8:46; Romans 8:31-34). Those who seek to condemn the servant (and his followers) will be destroyed like a garment eaten by moths (verse 9).’’ Tom Hale: ‘The Applied Old Testament Commentary, p.1051. Verses 4, 5 show something of the inner life of the Messiah, and His intimate walk with the Father. They also speak to leaders in the church today (and to us all) about the possibility of having such a close relationship with God that needy people benefit from the overflow of our lives. ‘’The Master, GOD, has given me a well-taught tongue, So I know how to encourage tired people. He wakes me up in the morning, Wakes me up, opens my ears to listen as one ready to take orders. The Master, GOD, opened my ears, and I didn’t go back to sleep, didn’t pull the covers back over my head.’’ The Message. ‘’We must be disciples before we can be apostles, and be taught before we teach. We shall never do our best work for God until we accustom ourselves to receive and take his messages; and there is no such time as the early morning for the lowly posture of sitting at the Master’s feet to hear his word.’’ F.B. Meyer: ‘Great verses through the Bible’, p.288. Not everyone would agree with Meyer about the early morning, but those who are ‘larks’ will know what he means. Whatever time of day works best for you, it is good to give quality time to waiting on God. This weary world needs those who have ‘awakened’ ears and ‘’instructed’’ tongues.

Those who fear God will obey His Son, Jesus (10). To trust in the Lord is to walk in His light. But if you walk in your own ‘’light’’ you are heading for ‘’torment’’ (11). Totally different destinies hang upon the acceptance or rejection of the Messaiah.

Prayer: Lord give me ears to hear you, and a tongue that speaks your Word.

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Daily Bible thoughts 750: Tuesday 18th November 2014:

 Isaiah 49:22-26

Many years ago I had the privilege of being involved in a service of blessing for a godly couple on their wedding day. The bride’s sister had been invited to sing a solo, which she duly did. But before the song she said a few words. As I recall, she expressed an opinion that there had been a certain amount of disappointment surrounding the occasion. Things had not gone quite as planned. Then she sang the lovely hymn: ‘’He is not a disappointment, Jesus is far more to me, than in all my wildest daydreams I had fancied Him to be.’’

‘He is not a disappointment ‘(23b). ‘’No one who hopes in me ever regrets it.’’ The Message.

Quite explicitly, verses 22 and 23 refer to the coming of Gentiles into the Messiah’s Kingdom. There will be Gentile kings and queens among their number, and, according to this remarkable prophecy, they will ‘’bow down’’ before the people of God, as well as before the Messiah Himself (7). In particular, Isaiah is referring to the part Gentiles (and Gentile rulers) will play in bringing the Jewish exiles home. But it is probably correct to see more in it than that. It also contains the thought of Gentiles coming to the King in His Kingdom. That marriage blessing service, back in the 80’s, was full of Gentiles who could share the joyful view that ‘He is not a disappointment.’

In (24) Isaiah asks the rhetorical question, ‘Will this actually be possible?’ Can captives be rescued from fierce warriors? He is thinking about how the exiles will be rescued from the Babylonians. Maybe he is giving voice to a question the people of Israel might themselves ask when they hear about this rescue. The Lord assures Isaiah that the exiles will indeed be rescued, and he will continue to contend with the enemies of His people, just as He has done in the past. In fact, they will be so overcome by hunger and thirst that they will eat each other’s flesh and drink each other’s blood (26; see and compare Lamentations 4:10). They would reap what they had sown; they would experience what they had caused the Jews to experience.

‘’Can plunder be retrieved from a giant, prisoners of war gotten back from a tyrant?…I’m the one who’s on your side, defending your cause, rescuing your children. And your enemies, crazed and desperate, will turn on themselves, killing each other in a frenzy of self-destruction. Then everyone will know that I, GOD, have saved you – I, the Mighty One of Jacob.’’ The Message.

In all that He does, God is working for His own glory in all the earth. May He be glorified in us today.

Prayer: Lord God, we think of our persecuted brothers and sisters thisday. We pray that they will know that you are for them, and that you will contend with those who contend with them.

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Daily Bible thoughts 749: Monday 17th November 2014:

 Isaiah 49:8-21

I remember when Alex Haley’s book, ‘Roots’, was turned into a television series, and it was a phenomenal success. Haley was interviewed by Michael Parkinson, who asked him, ‘’What is the secret of your success?’’ He replied, ‘’ I don’t really know, but I remember something my grandmother used to say: ‘You never know when the Lord’s going to come, but He’s always on time!’‘’ We may have to pray for a long period before we see God’s Word come to pass, but if we are patient things will change; breakthrough will come. When the time is right; ‘’the time’’ of God’s ‘’favour’’ (8a; see 2 Corinthians 6:2), chains will be broken and ‘’captives’’ (9) will be freed. The theme of a second exodus appears again in (8-13). God will lead His people home through the desert, lovingly caring for their needs. This turn around in the fortunes of God’s people is reason for universal rejoicing (13). ‘’There’ll be foodstands along all the roads, picnics on all the hills – Nobody hungry, nobody thirsty, shade from the sun, shelter from the wind, For the Compassionate One guides them, takes them to the best springs, I’ll make all my mountains into roads…Heavens, raise the roof! Earth, wake the dead! Mountains, send up cheers! GOD has comforted his people. He has tenderly nursed his beaten-up, beaten-down people.’’ The Message. These verses, however, must also look beyond the return from Babylonian exile. In them, the ‘Servant of the Lord’ is again addressed (8b; see 42:5-7). Verse 12 surely speaks of a broader ingathering of the Jews than the one that occurred after the exile. Jesus, the good Shepherd, is going to come and rescue all His weary people (Matthew 11:29, 30). When you think that (10) is alluded to in Revelation 7:17, you have to recognise that this passage is also about Gentiles coming in and coming home.

In the days of waiting for God to fulfil His Word, we can feel that He has forgotten and abandoned us (14). That’s how Israel felt during the exile years. In the tenderest language, the Lord assures them that this is not the case, whatever they may feel (15, 16). Jerusalem’s ‘’sons’’ (18a) are going to return home. They will be like beautiful jewellery worn by the bride, Jerusalem (18b; see also Revelation 21:2). Her best days are still to come.

The depopulated city of Jerusalem is going to be repopulated. It will be so significantly built up in numbers that there is evidently something miraculous going on. This transcends what happened after the exile. It must look on to the future extension of God’s Kingdom and growth of the church. It’s a picture of what occurs in revival, when there can be a sudden and dramatic growth surge in the church. ‘’And your ruined land? Your devastated, decimated land? Filled with more people than you know what to do with!…The children born in your exile will be saying, It’s getting too crowded here. I need more room.’ And you’ll say to yourself, ‘Where on earth did these children come from? I lost everything, had nothing, was exiled and penniless. So who reared these children? How did these children get here?’’’ The Message. May God graciously do it here!

Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you that you are building your church, and the gates of Hell will never prevail against it.

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Daily Bible thoughts 748: Friday 14th November 2014:

 Psalm 109:1-20

You can’t read this psalm without feeling sorry for David. We’ve all been there; we’ve been hurt by people. In some cases, men and women to whom we have done only good, have savagely turned on us. We are left bewildered; perplexed! How can people be like this?

Here are some pointers to how you can live in an unjust world and not lose your mind! The world is not fair and people are not always fair. Life is not fair. Things are not how God originally intended. But you don’t have to let this crush you. There is another way; a better route to travel:

  • Be a person of praise (1). Don’t ever forget that God is ruling, and make Him your continual focus. Remain God-centred. Stay true to Him whatever others may do. You can’t control what anyone else does, but you are in command of your own behaviour. Choose to be a worshipper of God. Always have a ‘’hallelujah prayer.’’ The Message. (As we will see, this psalm opens and closes with praise.)
  • Be a person of prayer (4). I read these words, and I think, ‘This is what I want to be more than anything else. I want to be a man of prayer.’ Even when life seems mad, and I don’t understand; all is well when I get on my knees before the sovereign Lord of the universe. Prayer brings perspective; and, of course, prayer changes things. Most importantly, perhaps, it changes me! It helps me to change my attitudes. And I am in constant need of transformation. It is good to ‘’take it to the Lord in prayer.’’ My pastor, when I was a young lad, under whose ministry I became a Christian, used to sing, ‘’A little talk with Jesus makes it right, all right.’’ I have found that it does (even if nothing outwardly changes!) David committed his case to God in prayer. In this way we see him as a forerunner of Christ (1 Peter 2:21-23.)
  • Be a person who desires justice (6-20). It is good to want justice. We Christians tend to struggle with the kind of prayer recorded in this psalm. It feels distinctly un-Christian. It is true that, given the fuller revelation in the New Testament, this is probably not an example of how we should pray for enemies. However, it does show that we can be honest with God. It does reveal that He cares about our deepest feelings. It does say that we can bring our wounds to Him for healing. It does make the point that God cares about justice and it is right for us to care about it too. It is also reminds us that those who are unjust will face the justice of God if they do not repent. This is a moral universe and God knows and cares. One day He will right all wrongs. No sin is overlooked. Every transgression has been fully paid for in the cross of Christ. Every act of wickedness gets punished. ‘’Remember that this psalm is a prayer; David is not planning revenge, but is asking God to act. David’s enemy is a hardened sinner, heartless and wicked. God has clearly stated in Scripture what will happen to such people (Leviticus 26:14-39)…David is only asking God to do what He has already said He would do. If a sinner repents and turns to God, he will be forgiven. But, by definition, a ‘’hardened sinner’’ is one who refuses to repent; thus he places himself beyond God’s forgiveness. Jesus told us to pray for our enemies (Matthew 5:43-44), and the most important thing we can pray for them is that they might repent.’’ Tom Hale: ‘The Applied Old Testament Commentary, p.905. (Compare verses 12-15 with Exodus 20:5 and 34:7/verse 8 with Acts 1: 20.)’’The best way to get rid of an enemy is to leave him or her with the Lord.’’ Warren W. Wiersbe: ‘With the Word,’ p.380

Prayer: Living in the midst of this mad, mad world, please help me to be a praising, praying person.

 

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Daily Bible thoughts 747: Thursday 13th November 2014:

Galatians 5:16-26

‘’Every time we say, ‘I believe in the Holy Spirit,’ we mean that there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it.’’ J. B. Phillips.

The Christian life is not a matter of keeping laws (18). As we have seen, we trust in Jesus to rescue us from sin. (Michael Green once wrote that the very Name ‘Jesus’ means ‘God to the rescue!’) Now we come to the further truth that we are transformed by the Holy Spirit. As we live by the power of the indwelling Spirit, He enables each one of us to ‘’not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.’’ (16). Because of His enabling, we can avoid toxic behaviours such as those described in (15, 19-21 and 26.) Notice that we will feel those desires, but the Holy Spirit will help us to ‘Just say no!’ I think it was Martin Luther who said, ‘’You can’t help the birds flying around your head, but you can stop them building a nest in your hair!’’ The old hymn is spot on: ‘’Yield not to temptation, for yielding is sin.’’

There is no doubt that we are capable of such bad behaviour as described in verses 19-21. Verses 16-23 point to what someone has called the fact of Christian conflict. This is a shorter version of Paul’s longer argument in Romans 7. The problem for every follower of Christ is that we still have a ‘’sinful nature’’. It is not surgically removed at the moment of conversion. It will be with us until we die. Just as a crown green bowling ball is fitted with a ‘bias’, and therefore has a tendency to go off course, so do we! We tend to veer off from the straight and true. We have this thing within that wants to sin and likes to sin. It is permanently inside us. At least, it is until we die. We can, for example, want to bite and devour fellow believers. We can feel proud or jealous. We can hate. We can be egotistical. We can have wrong sexual desires. We are capable of terrible things. Each one of us is aware of an inner ‘tug of war’ between the new nature and the old. The war within is real and relentless. A young pastor asked an older, veteran pastor, ‘At what age will I cease to battle with lust?’ The old man replied, ‘Son, when I get there I’ll let you know!’ This fight is ferocious, and it can be deeply distressing to those who long after holiness. The Holy Spirit causes us to desire things that are contrary to what the sinful nature has appetites for, but oh how this inward civil war rages! The Spirit stirs up hankerings after goodness, but the flesh resists furiously. There is no getting away from this fact of conflict.

But the passage also points to the way of Christian victory. There are two clear things we have to do: i) we must crucify the sinful nature (24): this is something we ‘’have’’ done at our conversion. But also, we know it is something we have to continually do. We must live in repentance, dealing radically with all forms of temptation; we have to be ruthless in our resistance, cordoning off all possible highways to sin (Matthew 5:29, 30); ii) we are to ‘’keep in step with the Spirit.’’ (25). It strikes me that these two principles are in tandem. We can’t perform the first without the second. Only by God’s power can anyone hammer nails into the sinful nature. Without that divine energising we will pander to the flesh and let it have its own way. ‘’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 area of our lives. This 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.

The Message: Thank you that the Holy Spirit is in my ‘corner’ and that He is the ‘Champion’. Thank you that He has got the beating of my sinful nature, and will train me to be a winner.

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Daily Bible thoughts 746: Wednesday 12th November 2014:

Galatians 5:7-15

We have all known brothers and sisters in Christ who at one time ‘’were running a good race.’’ (7). There is always a reason why we find them sitting in a crumpled heap beside the track. It may not be the same one that we find in Galatians, but there will be a cause. It is never less than heart-breaking to see someone drop out of the race.

Something was happening in the churches of Galatia that was not of God (8). The believers were being affected (and infected!) by false teaching, and a little drop of that poison can do a whole lot of damage (9). You don’t need a huge portion of it to wreck the local church. A grain or two on your plate will be enough. The ‘’offence of the cross’’ (11b) is, at least in part, the message that faith in Jesus’s sacrifice alone will save you. You don’t have to add any other good works into the mix. This applies to circumcision – a rite that was so important to Jews (11). Paul was ‘’persecuted’’ because he preached that salvation is by grace alone and through faith alone. Simple trust in Christ will suffice. He reserved the strongest language for those who wanted to pervert the gospel message (12). ‘’Why don’t these agitators, obsessive as they are about circumcision, go all the way and castrate themselves!’’ The Message. Tough words!

The battle for the faith was not something to be taken lightly (Jude 3). There were people who were spreading the rumour that Paul was preaching circumcision. He absolutely refutes this, saying that he would not be experiencing persecution if it were true. The Judaizers would let him alone if that were the case. But he had not given up hope for the Galatians (10), and believed that they would not turn away from the true gospel. He was clear in his mind that false teachers would get their punishment.

As Christian people we are ‘’free’’ (13-15). We are free from trying to save ourselves by our own efforts. We are freed from that self-defeating approach to life. But this ‘’freedom’’ does not then become a license to sin (see also Romans 6). People who misunderstood or misrepresented Paul’s teaching would argue that this is what he said. But nothing could be further from the truth. We are free from a man-made, do-it-yourself religion of works. Even more important, we are free from the guilt of sin. But Paul also emphasises that we are free to live right and responsibly, before God and with each other. ‘’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.’’ The Message. ‘’Law works by compulsion from without, but grace works by compassion from within.’’ Warren W. Wiersbe: ‘With the Word’, p.770

Sadly, many Christians have proved the truth of (15), probably without knowing (or remembering) that these words are in the Bible: ‘’But if you act like wild animals, hurting and harming each other, then watch out, or you will completely destroy one another.’’ The Good News Bible.

Prayer: Thank you for this wonderful freedom in Jesus; a liberty to do right and not do wrong. I am free indeed. Thank you Lord.

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