The Everyday Prayer

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 3:1-14 (day two)

This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? vs. 3

Paul asks a simple and direct question to the Galatians that can be asked of any of us. When you think about the time when you received the Holy Spirit, when you knew Jesus to be Lord of your life, how did it happen? Was it a day when you didn’t murder someone that you received the Spirit? Maybe it was a time when you didn’t steal, or lie, or covet. It seems foolish to think in those terms: I didn’t murder someone that day, and I felt the presence of the Lord.

We feel the presence of the Lord when we place our trust in him. We know the spirit when our faith is in Jesus alone. Your own personal testimony will bear this truth out, therefore let us make sure that our witness to others is not complicated with anything other than trust and faith in Jesus.

 

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 2:11-21 (day seven)

The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. Galatians 2:13

Peter, what are you doing? We know that you of all people know the importance of including the gentiles. Acts 10 and 11 showed us your vision where God told you to include them. This feels like a drawback to the Peter who would rebuke and deny Jesus rather than the one on whom the church was built. Yet, this is what makes you so relatable. You remind us of… ourselves! Two steps forward, one step back.  Even when we have been made new (vs 20), it seems like it is the same old sin that comes crawling back in. Satan knows to attack where we are weak. That is exactly why we need to be on guard, especially when we are in positions of power and influence.

“The sins of teachers are teachers of sins.” – John Trapp

Paul was right; Peter knew better. He knew no one was justified by working the law; his faith was firmly fixed on Jesus. BUT legalism is sneaky. It can happen to the best of us, just like it did to Peter. Under pressure (it doesn’t always take much), we can separate ourselves from those who don’t fit into our normal crowd out of fear of what the crowd might think. 

Jesus always had that problem; he was always being judged because he was hanging out with the wrong people, those who didn’t fit the profile. What made Jesus pretty cool was that he turned the world upside down by simply not avoiding people, especially those who didn’t fit the profile.

I hope we will always be ready to expose our sneaky legalism (our tendency to measure our righteousness by comparing ourselves to others) and embrace a willingness to turn the world upside down, just like Jesus.

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 2:11-21 (day five)  “When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel”

With the presence of the SA Phil at our church, this truth Paul is proclaiming becomes tangible. Every practice or performance, what is the first thing the orchestra does? They tune their instruments. Even the most expensive and well made instruments need to be constantly tuned. Same truth with the human heart. Paul is telling Peter and  others they have gotten literally “offline”. They were not “straight-walking”. They were out of tune with the perfect pitch (truth) of the gospel.

God help us hear the perfect pitch (truth) of the gospel!  Your Holy Spirit. Your Word. Accountability. Wisdom from other believers. Then give us courage to adjust and tune our hearts.

Christian living is therefore a continual realignment process – one of bringing everything in line with the truth of the gospel. – Tim Keller

Come thou fount of every blessing
Tune my heart…

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 2:11-21 (day four)

There are times in life when we experience a profound grief that makes everything feel different. We go through our day and find ourselves confused when everyone else isn’t feeling the same way we are. The world carries on like normal, but our inner world has completely changed, and we don’t quite know how to proceed. This can happen with joyous moments as well – an exciting life event consumes our attention, and we can’t make sense of the person walking around frowning. Our inner world has changed, yet the outer world stays the same.

The same phenomenon occurs with salvation, too. When we accept Jesus and are saved by grace, we become a new creation and our whole inner world changes. The outer world, though, stays eerily the same. The world carries on with its difficulties, sin, and biases, and we have to figure out how to proceed now that our inner and outer worlds aren’t in sync anymore.

This seems to be what Peter was experiencing here. His inner world had been changed by Christ and he was continuously learning what this profound gospel freedom looked like, when he was suddenly confronted by characters in the outer world with their laws and expectations. He didn’t know what to do, and ended up bending to their way. We’ve all experienced that pang of regret that comes when we bend to the ways of the world.

There will always be such friction on this side of heaven, but when we make Christ our greatest pursuit, the things of the world will continue to grow dim, and we’ll be able to say with growing confidence, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 2:11-21 (day three)

“When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.”

The account Paul relates here foreshadows his statement later in this epistle that life with Christ transcends the categorical divisions that have defined civilizations and societies and groups and families. Peter [Cephas] made the politically expedient decision to distance himself from the gentiles while Jews were present. But Peter’s maneuvering amounted to a denial of Christ’s way every bit as vehement as his denial of his friend on the night before the cross. Paul confronted a man who was heading right back into yet another denial of Christ. If ethnic group still separates from ethnic group, if men still lord it over women, if the powerful still enslave the weak — if these distinctions still define the way one person regards another — the church has nothing left to say.

(Credit to Aaron Hufty for pointing out to me the consistent pattern in Peter’s behavior)

 

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 2:11-21 (day two)  I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.” vs. 21

This verse provides a stark contrast to how we live out our faith. There can be no equivocating with regards to the power of the cross. Our identity in Christ is complete, lacking in nothing, with no need for further requirement of qualification. Why then do we always feel the need to add to the cross? Sure, it’s easy to point to other denominations who view grace differently than we do, but strip away the dogma of doctrinal differences and look at our lives. What are the things we needlessly attach to the cross? Righteousness, virtue, piety are all wonderful characteristics of a believer, but they follow the cross. They are not in addition to the cross. It will forever be a mystery to us while we struggle on this mortal coil. We feel we must ‘do’ something for this gift. Our daily reminder is a stark reality. Anything we add to the cross, diminishes the cross. Christ doesn’t need our help, he is our help. He doesn’t need our actions, he acted on our behalf. Christ is our requirement and he, and he alone, is sufficient.

Re:Verse passage – Galatians 2:1-10 (day seven)

They only asked us to remember the poor—the very thing I also was eager to do. Galatians 2:10

Even in the midst of dissension, we can usually see that we are on the same page. The end goal and purpose are usually the same and that is enough to keep us together. However, our culture would tell us that the dissension is irreparable. We have become so consumed with being right, that we can’t look through theological differences to join together for the greater good and the furtherment of the kingdom. I am right, you are wrong, so we can’t be friends. This is what the world is telling us.

This is not to say that we should compromise on our beliefs, but time is too short for us to waste time drawing lines in the sand when we could be drawing up battle plans. If there is opportunity to find unity in the midst of dissension, that is where our focus should be.