Happy Tuesday friends! I hope you are settling into your week after a great Independence Day Weekend!
I attend The Church of Eleven 22 in Jacksonville, Florida. We have been studying the Book of Galatians for the last few months and it has been a roller coaster of thinking through and challenging myself to live it out every day. Galatians was written by Paul to a church of new gentile believers who were being taught things that weren’t true. They were being told that it wasn’t enough to believe that Jesus was the Son of God, the Savior who lived sinlessly, died and rose again providing the payment for our sins. All Jesus said we needed was to believe that and we would be saved and free. But some of the teachers in Galatia were telling people that they needed to believe but also follow the Jewish law, to the point of circumcision! Anything we add to the Gospel in essence cheapens what Christ did. We are free because Jesus did it all! Completely, finished for everyone forever! So, I didn’t have a problem with that until I started to look at how I sometimes think and walk through my life without considering the magnitude of it. The Lord has had me thinking more deeply about lots of things:
Do I act and pray and worship Him daily as if He is the only reason I’m here? Sadly, no. I sometimes just jump up and into my day with my plan in the forefront and maybe send up a few “Thanks Lord!” prayers when I get a parking spot close to the store! But He has slowed me down a little with a summer cold, and allowed family junk to creep in that reminds me that my plans, words, and concerns aren’t working! I owe God my first and best and all my heart because HE IS LORD! I can’t be free without Him. But most importantly, I am free already because I believe what He did. I only need to walk close to Him and do what He tells us to do; Study His Word, love one another, obey what He tells me to do… I am not tied to the old law or the new rules that people add to the Gospel. I am already free! Why is it that I don’t remember that?
Who gave you your internal rule book? Parents, teachers, bosses, friends, people who don’t even know you?
If Jesus is your Savior, you have the Holy Spirit living in you. The Bible is the rule book!
There is plenty to legitimately work on in there! Don’t add extra to your plate by trying to live by man’s rulebook. That one changes over the decades and depending on who is popular or in power. The Bible doesn’t change but has the power to change the World because it is filled with God’s words and thoughts. Study His Word. It is always going to lead you to true freedom. Do what God tells you to do. That work is easy if you let Him help you.
Praying for each of us this week as we meet the challenges and tasks God sets before us. Do it with Jesus. It’s so much harder and less satisfying to do it by yourself! BE FREE!
I’d love to chat with you! Send me an email! If you are local to Jacksonville, maybe we can meet for a cup of coffee?
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