SOULJournal

Galatians 6

SCRIPTURE
¹⁰ Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

OBSERVATION AND UNDERSTANDING
The phrase while we have does not refer to occasional opportunities that present themselves in our lives but to the total opportunity of our present earthly existence. The idea is, while we have opportunity during our life on earth. In other words, a believer’s entire life is his unique but limited opportunity to serve others in the Lord’s name. It is an active seeking to find and take advantage of every opportunity we have to do serve others in God's name. 

And it is not simply being nice to people but it is the understanding of spiritual and moral goodness.  That spiritual and moral goodness, directed by the Holy Spirit, means that sometimes it requires lovingly confronting someone who is making bad choices and heading towards disaster.  We cannot wash our hands and say it is not our business.
Paul especially admonishes us to do this with the family of God,  This kind of sowing produces great fruit of love and joy that then becomes a testimony of the love of God to an onlooking world.

LIFE APPLICATION
How are we taking opportunity to do good to all men? 
What opportunity will you capitalize on today?

One of the best ways we can find opportunity to live out this exhortation is in the context of our GROW groups where we strive to "do life together" as the family of God.  If you are not a part of a GROW group you miss out on this great opportunity to "do good."

Galatians 5

 13It 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. (all too often that is exactly what we do as Christ-followers)

 22-23But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard (as we are connected to God, the Vine, we begin to bear fruit.  It is a process) 

—things like… 

affection for others, (love)

exuberance about life, (joy)

serenity. (peace)

We develop a willingness to stick with things, (patience)

a sense of compassion in the heart, (kindness)

and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. (If we truly lived with this understanding think of how differently we would respond to people and circumstances. This by itself is a life-altering outlook.  As we allow the Holy Spirit to lead us we learn to trust that God is at work in every situation of our lives and working through the people in our lives to bring about His plans and purposes, which are good.) 

We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

25-26 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 detail of our lives.  That 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.

 

Galatians 4

SCRIPTURE
⁴ But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, ⁵ to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. ⁶ Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” ⁷ So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.

OBSERVATION
Paul continues his basic argument that salvation is not gained by man’s merit or works but only by God’s grace working through man’s faith.  Using the analogy of a child becoming an adult, he compares the position and privileges of a child to those of a servant, with the figures of child and servant representing life under the law and the figures of adult and son representing life in Christ.

UNDERSTANDING
John Wesley was an honor graduate of Oxford University, an ordained clergyman in the Church of England and orthodox in theology. He was active in practical good works, regularly visiting the inmates of prisons and workhouses in London and helping distribute food and clothing to slum children and orphans. He studied the Bible diligently and attended numerous Sunday services as well as various other services during the week. He generously gave offerings to the church and alms to the poor. He prayed and fasted and lived an exemplary moral life. He even spent several years as a missionary to American Indians in what was then the British colony of Georgia. Yet upon returning to England he confessed in his journal, “I who went to America to convert others was never myself converted to God.” Later reflecting on his preconversion condition, he said, “I had even then the faith of a servant, though not that of a son.” Wesley tirelessly did everything he could to live a life acceptable to God, yet he knew something vital was missing. It was not until he went “very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street” one evening that he discovered and claimed true Christian life. “I felt my heart strangely warmed,” he wrote. “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

LIFE APPLICATION
Let's continue to grow up in Christ, experiencing the joy of salvation given by God's grace.  May we be people who are truly thankful for the incredible gift of grace.

Psalm 142

SCRIPTURE
 1-2 I cry out loudly to God, loudly I plead with God for mercy. I spill out all my complaints before him,  and spell out my troubles in detail:   3 "As I sink in despair, my spirit ebbing away, you know how I'm feeling, Know the danger I'm in, the traps hidden in my path.

OBSERVATION
In God I have a friend who knows where I am and what I am feeling.

UNDERSTANDING
Inevitably we face difficult times in our lives.  Times when we feel afraid, alone and overwhelmed by the circumstances of life.  David shows us the right response and the right attitude to have.  As he is locked away in the cave, running and hiding for his life he calls out to God.  In this moment of life David could feel angry at God because he is being pursued and Saul wants to kill him, but David has done nothing wrong.  Instead of being angry at God David calls on Him to have mercy.  David pours out his frustration to God with the understanding that God knows and understands where he is and what is going on.  He ultimately trusts that God will take care of this situation and that there will be a good ending to this chapter of his life.  At the end of the Psalm you can see David's faith and trust in God as he looks to the future…set me free from this prison…then the righteous will gather about be because of your goodness to me.

LIFE APPLICATION
We need to have faith in God and trust that He will take care of us no matter  how bleak the situations look.  Too often our faith falters and usually that is when the trouble starts, because we take matters into our own hands and then we do something that actually causes more trouble for us.  Will we trust His timing?  Will we trust that He is at work?  Will we believe that He knows where we are what we are feeling?  

Lord I today I make a choice again to choose to trust You.

Galatians 2

SCRIPTURE
19-21What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

OBSERVATION
The difference between being a "law-man" and being God's man is not so much a matter of different actions but a matter of motivation.

UNDERSTANDING
As we talk about this issue of law versus grace it seems to send the message that following the law is a bad thing and should not be done.  In fact now that we have been saved by grace we don't have to follow the law, we can do as we please, after all, it is not what we do that makes the difference.  I think when we understand the difference between being a law-man and being a God-man our outward actions could very well look the same, but as a child of God who has experienced God's grace we follow the law (think like the Ten Commandments) not because it can save us but because those things demonstrate our love for and trust in the one who has saved us.  I am saved not by anything I could have done, but having been saved from death, hell and the grave I choose to trust the one who saved me by following His commands.  Obedience to God is one of the highest forms of worship to God. 

I identified myself completely with him.  I am now crucified with Christ, my ego is no longer central.  Wow what a great way of saying that now what God wants is much more a priority than what I want.

LIFE APPLICATION
Thank you for saving me God, You are my Savior.  As I live as a God-man may my life reflect that you are my Lord as I trust you and obey your commands.

Galatians 1

SCRIPTURE
3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.  6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.

OBSERVATION
From the very inception of the church till now believers have struggled with this understanding of the gospel - the Good News that tells us we have been saved from death, hell and the grave by the grace of God.  It just doesn't seem right, surely it must be the grace of God and the works of man?  But we are not saved by works, not by anything we do, but because of what God has done for us.

UNDERSTANDING
The issue of salvation; being saved from the wages of sin and being restored to relationship with God, is not something we work for, it is something freely given by God.  After salvation there then comes the fact that as people transformed by the grace of God we choose to live in a way that pleases God.  This living out of our love for God does not save us, it is simply the outflow of our changed life because of the salvation of God.  Many people confuse the two thinking that only if you do "godly" things then you are saved.  Actually it is because we have experienced the grace of God we want to do what pleases God.

There is great freedom in understanding the difference

LIFE APPLICATION
Father thank you for your grace that saved me. Thank you for being my Savior, and now I surrender my life to You choosing to live in a way that honors and pleases You.  I choose to live in a way that reflects the fact that I am "in Christ."  I am a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come.  I want my life to reflect the love I have for You. 

Galatians 5

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

OBSERVATION
There is such a tension here between outward acts that we use to measure holiness and simply standing passively on the sidelines and saying that the Holy Spirit will do everything for us.  So what does it mean to live by the Spirit?

UNDERSTANDING
The more we attempt to live by rules and regulations the more we stifle the work of the Holy Spirit. Although Bible study, prayer, worship, witnessing, and other behaviors are commanded of believers and are necessary to faithful Christian living, spirituality cannot be measured by how often or how intensely we are involved in such things. To use them as measures of spirituality is to fall prey to legalism, whose only significance is in the outward, the visible, the humanly measurable. To live just by a set of laws is to live in self-righteousness and hypocrisy and to suppress the Spirit, who alone is able inwardly to produce works of true righteousness. Holiness comes only from the Holy Spirit.

Yet in emphasizing the central work of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life, some Christians have lost the tension between the human and the divine 

The power for Christian living is entirely from the Holy Spirit, just as the power of salvation is entirely in Jesus Christ. But both in the justifying work of Christ and in the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, man’s will is active and commitment is called for. We are not to sit on the sidelines and just watch the Holy Spirit do battle for us. We are called to consider that we are “to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus,” to refuse to let “sin reign in [our] mortal body,” to resist presenting “the members of [our] body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness,” and to present them “as instruments of righteousness to God” (Rom. 6:11-13).

If we are led by the Holy Spirit we must be willing to go where the Spirit sends us and do what the Spirit leads us to do. To claim we are surrendered to the Holy Spirit but not be personally involved in God’s work is to call Jesus, “Lord, Lord,” and not do what He says (Luke 6:46).

PRACTICAL APPLICATION
A life led by the Holy Spirit is one where we are continually conscious of His presence in our lives and we are desiring to let Him mold and shape us in the image of Christ.  We are willing to obey Him.  We are committed to letting Christ be glorified in our lives and that only happens as we are open and obedient to the promptings of the Spirit.  We must constantly tend the garden of our heart so that the fruit of the Spirit can develop.  We cannot become good by what we do but in the willingness to listen and respond to the Spirit (walking in the Spirit) we are made in the image and likeness of Christ.

Lord I will live by the Spirit.

Galatians 4

SCRIPTURE
4:^18-20It is a good thing to be ardent in doing good, but not just when I am in your presence. Can't you continue the same concern for both my person and my message when I am away from you that you had when I was with you? Do you know how I feel right now, and will feel until Christ's life becomes visible in your lives? Like a mother in the pain of childbirth.

OBSERVATION
I totally identify with Paul and his passion for the people under his spiritual care.

UNDERSTANDING
Paul, up to this point, has been pretty upset with the direction the Galatians had been going in listening to the Judaizers.  He spends the first three chapters laying out the doctrine very carefully so that they understood.  But he is careful to remind the Galatians that the reason for this impassioned writing is because of his deep love for them.  It is important that as leaders, parents, those in authority, we remember our motivation for correction.  It should always be generated by a deep love and concern for those we are leading.  And we must always remind them that it is because of that love and concern that we have to bring correction.

LIFE APPLICATION
Lord, help me not to just get frustrated because people aren't "getting it" and so I respond in anger motivated by that frustration.  Instead let me continue to love the people that you have entrusted me with so that even in correction they can be assured that there is a deep love and concern for them.

Galatians 3

SCRIPTURE
3:²⁶ You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, ²⁷ for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

OBSERVATION
Let grace rather than the law be our guide for living in Christ.

UNDERSTANDING
Wherever Paul went and established churches he was trailed by “Judaizers.” These were Jews—sometimes Jewish believers—who came to the newly founded churches and taught that to be a real Christian one must submit to Old Testament Law and in effect convert to Judaism. This did have a certain logic. Jesus was a Jew, and the roots of Christianity were undoubtedly Jewish. So many new Christians followed the teachings of the Judaizers. Paul rejected their “faith/works” Gospel and writes urgently to explain why mixing works with faith robs the Gospel of its power in the believer’s life.

Through faith in Christ we are released from bondage and given a unique “freedom” which enables us to be and do what is truly good.  Paul tells us that struggling in our own strength to do what is right is futile. He reminds us that God renews us from within and embracing that freedom enables us to be people who are right with God, and it also spills out into loving acts that express the reality of Christ alive in us.

LIFE APPLICATION
As people who have been saved by grace we need to let grace rather than law be our guide.  As children of God we must live as ones who are heirs and not as those who are still outsiders somehow trying to still earn the favor of the Father.  

 

Galatians 2

SCRIPTURE
2:^15-16We Jews know that we have no advantage of birth over "non-Jewish sinners." We know very well that we are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it—and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen! Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good.

 ^17-18Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren't perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous. If I was "trying to be good," I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan.

 ^19-21What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

OBSERVATION
We cannot work our way into God's good graces, our salvation is given to us by God through Jesus.

UNDERSTANDING
(Concise Theology J.I.Packer)

The main theme of the gospel is salvation. It is the understanding of rescue from jeopardy and misery into a state of safety. The gospel tells us that the God who saved Israel from Egypt, Jonah from the fish’s belly, the psalmist from death, and the soldiers from drowning (Exod. 15:2; Jon. 2:9; Ps. 116:6; Acts 27:31), saves all who trust Christ from sin and sin’s consequences.

As these earthly deliverances were totally God’s work, and not instances of people saving themselves with God’s help, so it is with salvation from sin and death. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8).

What are we saved from?
From the wrath of God, the power of sin, and the power of death (Rom. 1:18; 3:9; 5:21);
from our natural condition of being mastered by the world, the flesh, and the devil (John 8:23-24; Rom. 8:7-8; 1 John 5:19);
from the fears that a sinful life creates (Rom. 8:15; 2 Tim. 1:7; Heb. 2:14-15),
and from the many vicious habits that were part of it (Eph. 4:17-24; 1 Thess. 4:3-8; Titus 2:11-3:6).

Our salvation involves, first, Christ dying for us and, second, Christ living in us (John 15:4; 17:26; Col. 1:27) and we living in Christ, united with him in his death and risen life (Rom. 6:3-10; Col. 2:12, 20; 3:1).

Believers are saved from sin and death, but what are they saved for?
To live for time and eternity in love to God and to their neighbors. The source of love for God is knowledge of God’s redeeming love for us, and the evidence of love for God is love for our neighbors (1 John 4:19-21). God’s purpose, here and hereafter, is to keep expressing his love in Christ to us, and our goal must be to keep expressing our love to to God by worship and service in Christ.

LIFE APPLICATION
I did not do anything to impress God and somehow win my salvation, I simply accept that through what Jesus did on the cross I can be set free if I will believe in Jesus and His complete work.  In believing that I have been saved, I no longer live as a person who is governed by my sinful nature but as one who is governed by God - so I do the best I can to live according to God's ways.  It is imperfect at best but I press on nonetheless. 

Father may my life be one that demonstrates my deep gratitude for what you have done for me.  May I worship and serve You by loving you, your family and the world around me.