A String of Pearls

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

December 7 ... Galatians 1 - 3 "The Applause of God or Man"

Galatians 1:10
Am I currying the favor of God or man?  Whose applause am I listening for?
Is my goal popularity?  Do I have this upside down?
"It's what's happening IN you that matters, not what's happening TO you.  My Sn has set you free to makechices that will release yu from your compulsions.  Only when you see deeply enough into yur heart to recognize the corrution beneath the compulsions will you discoer freedom.  Pray like David:  'Seach me, Oh God...see if thereis any offensive way in me' Psa 139:23-24.  There is!  You need to see it.  Not many do."  66 LL

Galatians 2:20
My name was in His Heart from the beginning.  HE intervened.  Now, 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. To go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God.  I refuse to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

Galatians 3:2  "How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God's Message to you?" Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God.  Did you go through the pain for nothing?  Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust Him to do them in you? Carrying out such a moral program should make it plain that no one can sustain a relationship with God that way. The person who lives in right relationship with God does it by embracing what God arranges for him.  Rule-keeping does not naturally evolve into living by faith, but only perpetuates itself in more and more rule-keeping.

3 comments:

  1. Galatians 2:15-16 ~ “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. “

    So grateful this morning for Jesus, that trying to be good would never be enough, that Grace is the answer!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Galatians 1:10
    Am I currying the favor of God or man? Whose applause am I listening for?
    Is my goal popularity? Do I have this upside down? "It's what's happening IN you that matters, not what's happening TO you. My Son has set you free to make choices that will release you from your compulsions. Only when you see deeply enough into your heart to recognize the corruption beneath the compulsions will you discover freedom. Pray like David: 'Seach me, Oh God...see if there is any offensive way in me' Psa 139:23-24. There is! You need to see it. Not many do." 66 LL
    I recall back to my early 20's and had graduated college and taught school for one year in my home town then signed up for a two year home mission assignment that sent me to the Papago Indian Reservation in Sells, AZ for six months then onto Glendale AZ for 18 months with a Spanish Baptist Church. What a huge learning experience that was for me. I say all that being raised in NE Ark part of the Bible Belt being in church since the cradle roll and going on the home mission field.
    As I was working one day with an older resident missionary on the Papago compound, she mentioned that there are many Christians who give to the church and missions and other things just to receivce a "thank you". That thought had never occured to me before and yet I recognized in my youth niavete I was definitly guilty of that.
    Praise God for his Amazing Grace and Mercy that forgives me and allows me to grow. As we know it is a process for the most of us.

    I desire to hear the favor and applause of God. Too often I must confess I have waited for confirmation from earthly beings. I recognize it is the heavenly confirmation that counts. Lord, forgive my lack of trust and belief in You. I desire to believe you and trust you No Matter What.
    The message in Galations 1-3 says it so well.

    This is a Song I must Sing. Sylvia

    ReplyDelete
  3. "My ego is no longer central."

    Pondering this as well as what I'm reading in Gene Edwards book, 100 Days In The Secret Place. I'm certainly not recommending this book, I've just started reading it. But it's convicting me of how often I take my eyes off the cross and let my self-love take center stage. Someone hurts my feelings and I feel rejection. Really deep but self-love causes us so much pain. Our focus needs to remain centered on Jesus and not on ourselves.

    I'm trying to remember that when I came to Jesus, I died and Jesus lives IN ME.

    "My ego is no longer central."

    ReplyDelete