Galatians 5:7-9

You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth? It certainly isn’t God, for he is the one who called you to freedom. This false teaching is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough! We all know what is to be disappointed. It may be that someone has let you down, or that things just haven’t worked out in the way you had hoped. Paul’s letter to the Galatians is dominated by his deep and agonising disappointment that his readers had allowed false teaching to mislead them. He wondered whether his ministry to them had been a complete failure. This was clearly intensely painful for Paul because he longed to see them become joyful and fruitful Christians, and all seemed to have gone horribly wrong. They had gone back to following the rules and restrictions from which Christ had set them free. It’s easy to understand how quickly and easily false teaching spread in the early Church. Christianity was new and very few people had a deep knowledge or experience of it. Many people came from a Jewish background and found it very difficult to understand the radical nature of the changes that Christ had brought about. Others came from a background in other religions and were easily persuaded by the latest eloquent speaker. Paul was eager to help them resist false teaching and to stand strong in the freedom that Christ had brought them. Our context is very different from the Galatians, but we should be no less concerned about false teachers. Paul describes their teaching as being like yeast. It may seem small, but it can have a huge and damaging effect. These days, false teaching can spread instantly around the world through the internet, so we need to be even more on our toes. The very best way to prepare ourselves is by sticking close to the Bible’s teaching. By spending time reading, reflecting and praying through the Bible, we arm ourselves to face the latest false teaching.

Question What have you found to be the most helpful ways of getting to know the Bible better?

Prayer Loving God, thank you for the gift of the Bible and for the way in which its light shines on my life. Amen

Galatians 4:6-7

Because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir. When I hear the word ‘father’, I immediately think of my own father. We probably all do. I think of a gentle and kind Christian man. He was a businessman and a busy member of our church, and he was always absolutely devoted to my mother and his four children. He died a few years ago, and I thank God for him. I am well aware that the word ‘father’ can trigger completely different reactions. For some people, it reminds them of someone who was cruel, dismissive and rude to them. Does that mean we should stop referring to God as a father? I don’t believe so. A number of people who have had a bad experience of fatherhood have told me how they desperately needed to know that they had a father, a heavenly Father, who was completely faithful and loving to them. Whatever experience we have had of human fatherhood, our fathers have not been perfect. Only God himself offers us that kind of fatherhood. Now that we are fully a part of God’s family, we have the incredible privilege of calling God Abba. The word comes from Aramaic, Jesus’ mother tongue, and is a word of extreme intimacy, similar to ‘daddy’. How amazing that we can address the creator of the universe with such familiarity, but that is the consequence of being children of God! We have a completely new status and security. It’s helpful to think of our relationship with God as forming the foundations of life. No building can stand for long if it hasn’t got firm foundations, but if they are in place, the building can grow strongly and securely. Life is no different. When we are clear about our unchangeable relationship with God our Father, we can build all other relationships and plans with confidence.

Question How helpful do you find it that you are able to call God ‘Abba’?

Prayer Abba Father, thank you for the love and security that you give me. Help me to build the whole of my life on the relationship that I have with you. Amen

Galatians 3:11

So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law. For the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.” For the apostle Paul, this was the crunch issue. The only way to be made right with God is through faith. He was addressing many people who believed that obeying the law was crucial for all Christians, but he argued that however well we live, we will always fail. We will never be able to put our relationship with God right by our own efforts. Coming from a strict Jewish background, Paul knew all about the significance of the law. From his earliest days, he had been taught that he needed to obey the letter of the law in order to please God. He had then been taught by the Pharisees, who were meticulous in their adherence to the law. Paul knew exactly what he was talking about! He knew that the law could only ever be a burden, and that’s why he was so excited that Jesus came to set us free. Because of the impossibility of pleasing God by our hard work, all we can do is receive his salvation as a gift. This all sounds so simple but, interestingly, we find it surprisingly difficult to receive free gifts. We instinctively suspect that there must be a catch. When someone offers the most precious thing in the world, we assume that it cannot possibly be true, but it is! Paul knew for himself how wonderful it was to live in the freedom that Jesus gives, and he longed for his friends in Galatia to have the same experience, but they needed to know exactly what kind of freedom this was. In chapter 5, he spelled this out. We have been set free not to do whatever we like, because that would be incredibly destructive. Christ has set us free so that we can “serve one another in love” (Galatians 5:13). It’s impossible to think of a world that is better or happier than one that is shaped by love, and that’s the gift we have been given, if only we will accept it.

Question How has Christ’s gift of freedom affected your life?

Prayer Lord Jesus, forgive me for those times when I have fooled myself into thinking that I could please you by my own efforts. I thank you for the free gift of salvation. Amen

Galatians 2:20

My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. In these first two chapters of Galatians, Paul gives a fascinating summary of his life story since he became a Christian, reminding his readers of his background. He had been so deeply committed to his Jewish faith that he had done everything possible to destroy the Church. Paul makes it clear that when he started following Christ, he didn’t rush to Jerusalem, where the first church was formed. First, he went away into Arabia, and only after three years did he go to meet the leaders in Jerusalem. The point he was making was that his new life as a Christian hadn’t been shaped by other people and their traditions, but only by Christ. It was another 14 years before he returned to Jerusalem and the church leaders recognised him as the one God had sent to preach to the Gentiles. The Jerusalem church was, not surprisingly, focused on people from a Jewish background. Paul’s life was completely defined by Christ, not by any humans or their traditions. His new life was no longer his own but Christ’s, and he was certain that he had found the best life imaginable. He had long since learned that living for himself wasn’t worth it. In Romans chapter 7, Paul reflected on the struggle inside him when he lived life by himself. He tried to do the right things but consistently failed. He exclaimed: “Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?” He triumphantly concluded: “Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:24-25). To give up his entire life to Christ might sound an incredible thing to do, but don’t miss the punchline. He was delighted to give himself completely to Christ because the Son of God had loved him and given up his life for him. Living for Christ, whether in the first century or the 21st, is purely and simply a response to God’s perfect love for us in Christ.

Question How do you understand the expression “crucified with Christ” for you personally?

Prayer Lord Jesus, I thank you with all my heart that you love me and gave yourself for me. Amen

Galatians 1:4

Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live. Every now and again, we hear about rescue missions. Brave soldiers are put down behind enemy lines, often in a low flying helicopter, and set some prisoners free. It’s all very exciting and impressive. Here, the apostle Paul talks about us being rescued, and it sounds as if God is coming to transport us out of this world, but that isn’t his purpose. His desire is to leave us in this world to do his work. What we need to understand is that the Jews thought in terms of two ages. There was this present evil age and then there was the age to come. This present age is dominated by the devil and is characterised by sin, death and brokenness, and the age to come is marked out by love, harmony and life. The age to come is what the New Testament writers refer to as eternal life. Because it has its roots in God, it cannot and will not come to an end. When Paul talks about the rescue mission that Jesus brings about through his death on the cross, he is saying that we are transported from one world to another, but for the time being, we stay exactly where we are! Our calling is to experience eternal life and to live for God amid all the challenges and difficulties of a world that is firmly opposed to him. We might often wish that God would relieve us from all the pressures and brokenness of our sinful world. Having met Christ, we know that the world doesn’t need to be like this. However, for now, our calling is to stay where we are and to serve God faithfully, encouraging and helping other people to have the experience of being rescued by Jesus.

Question In what ways have you experienced God’s rescue through what Christ did for you on the cross?

Prayer Loving God, thank you for rescuing me. Help me to become increasingly eager to help others to find the eternal life which you offer. Amen

Galatians 1:1

This letter is from Paul, an apostle. I was not appointed by any group of people or any human authority, but by Jesus Christ himself and by God the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead. Yesterday, we were reflecting on the call of Isaiah. He was absolutely clear that he was called by God to his challenging ministry. Today, in this reading from Galatians, we meet the apostle Paul hundreds of years later making it clear that he was appointed by God alone. This was no human appointment, but one that God had decided to make. As this letter unfolds, it will become increasingly clear why he needed to make this point right at the beginning. It’s a strong letter in which he shows his severe disagreement with many people. They needed to know that he was acting purely and simply on the orders of God himself. There is nothing more important in life than to know that we are doing what God wants. Too often, people have got the impression that only ministers and mission personnel are called by God, but that isn’t the case. Each day, God calls all of us to work for him. In our schools, offices, colleges, hospitals, factories, homes, communities and friendships, we are living and working as God’s representatives. That might sound rather overwhelming. We are all keen to emphasise how frail, failed and unimportant we are, but God always equips the people that he calls. We frequently face situations that are outside our experience or expectation. In those moments, we need to remind ourselves why we are there in the first place! We are there because God has placed us there, and we can confidently look to his Spirit to equip us to be who and what he wants us to be. Throughout Paul’s ministry, there were people who looked down on him. He hadn’t spent time with Jesus like the other apostles, and he was often seen as an outsider. He also doesn’t seem to have been a particularly powerful preacher, and that didn’t go down well. However, he knew he was called by God, and that gave him the steel to stand up for his faith in the most testing of settings. Whatever others think of us, we all need to keep focused on what God thinks of us and what he has called us to do.

Question What is God calling you to do for him today?

Prayer Lord God, thank you for equipping me to do whatever you call me to do. Amen

Isaiah 6:8

Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom should I send as a messenger to this people? Who will go for us?” I said, “Here I am. Send me.” Isaiah’s encounter with God in the temple was so intimate that he was able to overhear God having a conversation. God was wondering who he could send as a messenger, and Isaiah immediately put up his hand and offered his services. Isaiah’s response stands in marked contrast to others, such as Moses and Jeremiah, who offered God reasons why he had chosen the wrong person. Isaiah was willing, and God took him at his word. Willingness is a wonderful quality. When gifts were given for the building of the temple in Jerusalem, the people were incredibly generous. They gave 170 tonnes of gold, 10,000 gold coins, 240 tonnes of silver, 612 tonnes of bronze and 3,400 tonnes of iron. We read that: “the family leaders, the leaders of the tribes of Israel, the generals and the captains of the army and the king’s administrative officers all gave willingly…The people rejoiced over the offerings, for they had given freely and wholeheartedly to the LORD, and King David was filled with joy” (1 Chronicles 29:6,9). Isaiah was willing to serve God, but that doesn’t mean that life suddenly became easy for him. Far from it. He was given a desperately difficult task to perform. God assured him that people wouldn’t want to hear his message. They would “plug their ears and shut their eyes” (Isaiah 6:10). Even this discouraging information didn’t undermine Isaiah’s willingness. He simply enquired of God how long this would go on, to which God replied that it would carry on until the land had been turned into a wasteland and the people had been carried off into exile. It was a tough message, but Isaiah’s willingness was undiminished. Isaiah knew that the greatest thing he could ever do was to serve the living God.

Question Are you willing to do whatever God asks you to do?

Prayer Lord God, help me to always be willing to serve you in whatever way you choose. Amen