Galatians 6 -- Bearing One Another's Burdens

Paul had earlier said, "Bear one another's burdens."  He now fills us in on how he means for us to do that.

"The legalist is not interested in bearing burdens.  Instead, he adds tot he burdens of others ... The legalist is always harder on other people than he is on himself, but Spirit=led Christian demands more of himself than he does of others that he might be able to help others."

"We should use tender loving care when we seek to restore a broken life [of a brother who has sinned].  It takes a great deal of love and courage for us to approach an erring brother and seek to help him."

"Jesus went on to point out that the church must practice prayer and forgiveness, or discipline will not be effective," when approaching a brother or sister who has sinned yet doesn't seem interested in being restored.

"We should help each other bear the heavy burdens of life, but there are personal responsibilities that each man must bear for himself."  No one should expect the church and its members to do everything for them.

The Greek word koinonia shows up here.  "It simply means to have in common, and refers to our common fellowship in Christ, our common faith, and even our sharing in the sufferings of Christ.  But often in the New Testament, koinonia refers to the sharing of material blessings with one another ... What we do with material things is an evidence of how we value spiritual things."

"Money sown to the flesh will bring a harvest of corruption.  That money is gone, and can never be reclaimed.  Money sown to the Spirit will produce life, and in that harvest will be seeds that can be planted again for another harvest, and on and on into eternity.  If every believer only looked on his material wealth as seed, and planted it properly, there would be no lack in the work of the Lord.  Sad to say, much seed is wasted on carnal things and can never bring glory to God."

"We must remember that we share with other Christians so that all of us might be able to share with a needy world.  The Christian in the household of faith is a receiver that he might become a transmitter."

Father, thank You for recent reminders about helping other Christians and also helping others who are not, but whom You want to reach through me.

 

Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford

Galatians 5 -- Resisting Becoming A Rebel

"No man could become a rebel who 1) depends on God's grace; 2) yields to God's Spirit; 3) lives for others, and 4) seeks to glorify God," my commentary began.  After reading all seven pages on this one chapter, it seems that if we don't do one or more of these, then we are susceptible to becoming a Christian who is a rebel.  That isn't good.  A lot to boil down today.  Here are the highlights:

1)  "We no longer need the external force of the law to keep us in God's will, because we have the internal leading of the Holy Spirit of God."

2)  We weren't left partially empowered.  "Once a person is in Christ, he has all that he needs to live the kind of Christian life God wants him to live."

3)  "No amount of obedience can make up for one act of disobedience."

4)  "No amount of legislation can change man's basic sinful nature.  It is not law on the outside, but love on the inside that makes the difference.  We need another power within, and that power comes from the Holy Spirit of God."

5)  "What God the Father planned for you, and God the Son purchased for you on the cross, God the Spirit personalizes for you and applies to your life as you yield to Him."

6)  "The Christian is free from the guilt of sin because he has experienced God's forgiveness.  He is free from the penalty of sin because Christ died for him on the cross.  And he is, through the Spirit, free from the power of sin in his daily life ... Don't allow your liberty to degenerate into license ... Christian liberty is not a license to sin but an opportunity to serve."

7)  "The amazing thing about love is that it takes the place of all the laws God ever gave.  'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself' solves every problem in human relations ... Love in the heart is God's substitute for laws and threats ... The Holy Spirit within us gives us the love that we need ... Unless the Holy Spirit of God is permitted to fill hearts with His love, selfishness and competition will reign."

8)  "The Spirit and the flesh (the old nature) are at war with each other.  By the flesh, of course, Paul did not mean the body.  The human body is not sinful; it is neutral.  If the Holy Spirit controls the body, then we walk in the Spirit; but if the flesh (the old nature) controls the body, then we walk in the lusts (desires) of the flesh (the old nature).  The Spirit and the flesh have different appetites, and this is what creates the conflict."

9)  "Our old nature is always looking for something unclean on which to feed.  Our new nature is yearning for that which is clean and holy.  No wonder a struggle goes on within the life of the believer! ... We cannot win this victory in our own strength and by our own will."

10)  "The solution is not to pit our will against the flesh, but to surrender our will to the Holy Spirit ... The Holy Spirit writes God's law on our hearts so that we desire to obey Him in love ... Being led of the Spirit and walking in the Spirit are the opposite of yielding to the desires of the flesh."

11)  Paul lists three different categories of sins and gives examples of each, then says that the person who practices these sins shall not inherit the kingdom of God.  "Paul is not talking about an act of sin, but a habit of sin ... But how does the believer handle the old nature when it is capable of producing such horrible sins? ... The old nature must be crucified ...Christ died for me to remove the penalty of sin, but I died with Christ to break sin's power."

12)  We must accept what god says about the old nature and not try to make it something that it is not.  We must not make provision for the flesh by feeding it the things that it enjoys ... Only through the Holy Spirit can we put to death the deeds that the flesh would do through our bodies.  The Holy Spirit is not only the Spirit of life, but He is also the Spirit of death.  He helps us to reckon ourselves dead to sin."

13)  "It is one thing to overcome the flesh and not do evil things, but quite something else to do good things ... Negative goodness is not enough in a life; there must be positive qualities as well."

14)  "A machine in a factory works and turns out a product, but it could never manufacture fruit.  Fruit must grow out of life and, in the case of the believer, it is the life of the Spirit."

15)  "Building Christian character must take precedence over displaying special abilities."

16)  The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control ... "We must remember that this fruit is produced to be eaten, not to be admired and put on display.  People around us are starving for love, joy, peace, and all the other graces of the Spirit.  When they find them in our lives, they know that we have something they lack.  We do not bear fruit for our own consumption; we bear fruit that others might be fed and helped, and that Christ might be glorified ...  The flesh cannot bear fruit that brings glory to God ... the secret is the Holy Spirit.  He alone can give us freedom from sin and self.  He enables us to fulfill the law of love, to overcome the flesh, and to bear fruit."

Wow!

Father, thank You for reminding me again to listen to the Holy Spirit and to let Him continue to grow me more like Christ.  Help me crucify my old nature.

 

Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford

Galatians 4 -- Not An Heir

Paul is so astounded at how this group of Christians has veered off the path they were on when he left!  He now feels like he's got to help them see what the false teachers have done to them.

My commentary says he first explains their adoption:  "It has to do with our standing in the family of God."  They hadn't been adopted as children, the way my boys were, but "as adult sons with all of the privileges of sonship."  (Remember, women didn't have those privileges back then.)  They had been children of bondage to sin and now they were sons and heirs.

He then tackles their regression, it says.  They had "abandoned liberty for bondage" to the law.  Paul then uses that Old Testament craving they have to show them a hidden meaning in the story of Isaac that the holy Spirit had revealed to him.  Abraham and Sarah hadn't been able to have children, even though God had promised they would.  So Sarah offered her slave girl, Hagar, and Abraham and Hagar soon had Ishmael.  He's believed to have been the start of the Muslim people.

"For 14 years, Ishmael has been his father's only son, very dear to his heart."  Then comes Isaac through Sarah.  At the weaning ceremony when he turned three, "Ishmael begins to mock Isaac and to create trouble in the home.  There is only one solution to the problem, and a costly one at that:  Hagar and her son have to go.  With a broken heart, Abraham sends his son away, because this is what the Lord tells him to do."

My commentary shows that Hagar vs. Sarah = law vs. grace, and Ishmael vs. Isaac = flesh vs. Spirit.  "You cannot separate these four factors.  The Judaizers taught that law made the believer more spiritual, but Paul made it clear that law only releases the opposition of the flesh and a conflict within the believer ensues."

"Isaac was born Abraham's heir, but Ishmael could not share in this inheritance.  The Judaizers were trying to make Hagar a mother again ... No amount of religion or legislation can give the dead sinner life.  Only Christ can do that through the gospel."

Father, help me not to substitute for Your perfect will for my life.  Keep me on the path You've got planned out for me for the rest of this life.  Don't let me try to overthink it like Abraham and Sarah did.

 

Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford

Galatians 3 -- Paul Delivers A Smackdown!

Paul sounded like God's attorney arguing before the Supreme Court and winning handily!  He used plain logic to drive the Judaizers right into the ground.  He first established that God's Promise to Abraham to bless the world through his Seed (Jesus) came hundreds of years before the Law given to Moses.  So the Law couldn't change that Promise.  He also used contract law to remind them that only the parties to a contract can change it.  A third person cannot.  And when looked at in that light, "Abraham did not make a covenant with God; God made a covenant with Abraham.  God did not lay down any conditions for Abraham to meet.  In fact, when the covenant was ratified, Abraham was asleep! (Gen. 15)  It was a covenant of grace:  God made promises to Abraham; Abraham did not make promises to God."

"God made this covenant of promise with Abraham through Christ, so that the only two parties who can make any changes are God the Father and God the Son.  Moses cannot alter this covenant!... The Judaizers wanted to add to God's grace and take from God's promises.  They had no right to do this since they were not parties in the original covenant!"

Paul also proved that the Law is not greater than the Promise:  it was temporary -- "until the Seed should come."  And, it required a mediator -- Moses.

He also proved that the Law was not contrary to the Promise.  "It regulated the lives of the Jewish people, but it did not and could not provide spiritual life to the people."  It was given to reveal sin;  the Law doesn't make us sinners; it reveals to us that we already are sinners."  And it was given to prepare the way for Christ.

He showed that the Law cannot do what the Promise can do.  "The Law could never justify the guilty sinner.  'I will not justify the wicked,' said the Lord (Ex. 23:7) ... The trouble is, nobody was righteous.  It is only through faith in Jesus Christ that the sinner is justified -- declared righteous -- before God.  Furthermore, the law could never give a person oneness with God; it separated man from God.  There was a fence around the tabernacle and a veil between the holy place and the Holy of Holies."

Paul was an incredible "lawyer", coached by the One who made the Law!

Father, I thank You for wrapping this all up so that we can't debate it.  All we can do is shut up and admit that You are God and we are not.  Be Lord in my life!

Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford

Galatians 1 & 2 -- Almost Too Much To Chew!

My commentary had suggested that I read Galatians in its entirety as a letter, as Paul had sent it.  I started doing that, but then found myself wondering what my commentary would say about certain parts, and I discovered that two pages in my Bible were covered by twelve pages in my commentary!  I had to stop and catch up!

Paul wrote to the Galatians to clear up some very substantial controversies that had occurred.  Of course, he hadn't been one of the twelve original disciples, and some had mentioned that.  He hadn't encountered Christ until after the crucifixion and resurrection.  But the risen Christ had appeared to him and changed his life!  It was such a sudden and incredible change that Paul traveled to Arabia for 3 years where Jesus spoke to him and fleshed out his ministry to the non-Jews.  He'd then met Peter and James in Jerusalem, then he waited 14 years before returning again.  Paul had been all about the law of Moses before meeting Christ, knowing it backward and forward.  Anyone crazy enough to take him on would be easily taken down.  The Jerusalem council hadn't understood that Christianity wasn't a Jewish sect.  Paul showed them differently.  He even told Peter that Peter had been living with and like Gentiles and suddenly he's telling Gentiles that, instead, they needed to live like Jews!  And he called out Peter for this hypocrisy.  Paul begins to show how grace and works conflict.  There are several lessons for us in this:

1)  "A man does not become a Christian merely by agreeing to a set of doctrines; he becomes a Christian by submitting to Christ and trusting Him.  You cannot mix grace and works, because the one excludes the other."

2)  "Peace at any price was not Paul's philosophy of ministry, nor should it be ours."

3)  He defines justification for us:  "Justification is the act of God whereby He declares the believing sinner righteous in Jesus Christ.  It is an act and not a process ... it is an instant and immediate transaction between the believing sinner and God.  (If we were justified by works, then it would have to be a gradual process.)"

4)  "Before the sinner trusts Christ, he stands guilty before God; but the moment he trusts Christ, he is declared not guilty, and he can never be called guilty again ... Once you have been justified by faith, you can never be held guilty before God ... when the sinner is justified by faith, his past sins are remembered against him no more, and God no longer puts his sins on record."

5)  "God justifies sinners, not good people ... the reason most sinners are not justified is because they will not admit they are sinners!"

Peter's backtracking meant this:  "Grace says there is no difference.  All are sinners, and all can be saved through faith in Christ.  But Peter's actions had said, 'There is a difference!  The grace of God is not sufficient; we also need the law.  Returning to the law nullifies the cross ... Law says do! but grace says done!

Finally, the commentary tells us we should take inventory of ourselves with these questions:

1)  Have I been saved by the grace of God?

2)  Am I trying to mix law and grace?

3)  Am I rejoicing in the fact that I am justified by faith in Christ? 

4)  Am I walking in the liberty of grace?

5)  Am I willing to defend the truth of the gospel?

6)  Am I walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospel?

Father, thank You for this reminder about justification, and thank You for leading me through this inventory.  help me to live by the grace You've given me.  I don't want to ever try to mix it with works.  Remind me, too, that justification is a finalized act for me -- You no longer remember my past sins, and You no longer put my sins on record.  Thank You for Your grace!

 

Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford

1 Peter 5:10-14 Hope When The Trials Get Us Really Down

Peter has been telling us that fiery trials are coming.  For his contemporary readers, it could very well have meant being burned at the stake or fed to lions.  For us today, our trials may be much like someone who fights a congenital medical condition -- knowing that it will have to be faced for all of their life.  Drug addiction, alcohol addiction, and sex addiction, for example, may be seen merely as "current sins" that may or may not be the result of genetics, but may still cause even Christians to struggle not to fall again for the rest of their lives.  The temptation to give in just once more will always be there for them, and if they are to overcome it, they will need the power of God's grace.  That's why my commentary entitled this section "Be Hopeful" and it gives some excellent reminders to those whose fiery trials seem to last a lifetime:

"God knows what He is doing, and He is in complete control -- No matter how difficult the fiery trial may become, a Christian always has hope.  Peter gave several reasons."

"We have God's grace -- He called us before we called on Him ... We have tasted that the Lord is gracious, so we are not afraid of anything He purposes for us ... He gives us the grace that we need ... He has grace to help in every time of need."

"We know we are going to glory -- Whatever begins with God's grace will always lead to God's glory ... If we depend on God's grace when we suffer, that suffering will result in glory.  The road may be difficult, but it leads to glory, and that is all that really counts."

"Our present suffering is only for a little while -- Our various trials are only for a season, but the glory that results is eternal."

"We know that our trials are building Christian character -- God has several tools that He uses to equip His people for life and service, and suffering is one of them ... Our Savior in heaven is perfecting His children so that they will do his will and His work."

"When an unbeliever goes through suffering, he loses his hope; but for a believer, suffering only increases his hope ... God builds character and brightens hope when a believer trusts Him and depends on His grace.  The result is that God receives the glory forever and ever."

Father, remind me of this during my own fiery trials.  I know that You know what You are doing and that You are in complete control.  I trust You, God.  Remind me that despite the pain, Your reward will come.

 

Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford