Read the Bible in a Year (07DEC19)

DAILY REMINDER – Today, December 7’s Bible reading is Galatians 1-3.

NEXT DAY REMINDER – Tomorrow, December 8’s Bible reading is Galatians 4-6. May God bless you with the reading of His WORD.

 

GALATIANS Introduction 

The church in Galatia consisted of Galatians whom Paul had brought into the Christian faith through the leading of the Holy Spirit. False prophets and teachers, Judaizers, who were Jewish Christians came in after Paul to teach false doctrines. They wanted the Galatians to believe that they had to keep the ceremonial laws such as the rite of circumcision to receive salvation instead of being justified (saved) by faith. Therefore, these false teachers aimed to put the Galatians under the curse of the Law from which they had been freed, for Paul taught that the just shall live by faith.  

The Judaizers challenged Paul’s apostolic anointing and argued that he was attempting to make his messages more appealing to the Gentiles by compromising the Mosaic requirements. Therefore, the letter to the Galatians was Paul addressing their smear campaign of him not being an authentic apostle and their attempt to undo the work that he had done with the Christians in Galatia. This book is believed to have been authored by Paul around 50 A.D.  Galatians is written to clarify to Christians then and now that we are justified by our belief in Jesus Christ, and that we are sanctified through our obedience and power from the Holy Spirit that comes through faith in Him and not from our own works. 

 

GALATIANS MOMENT – (07DEC19) “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!” (Galatians 1:8). “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” (Galatians 2:21). We are saved by faith and not by our works. This is the message that Paul received from Jesus himself, and he taught this to the Christians in Galatia. Paul made it clear that his message did not come from human origin.  Unfortunately, there were false teachers who had come to Galatia to teach a gospel contrary to what Paul had ministered to the church. This caused Paul to send a strong rebuke to the churches in Galatia because they were allowing the wolves to creep in and undo all that he tried to teach them. Peter even became part of the rebuke for which Paul confronted him to his face concerning his hypocrisy. As long as the Jews were not around, Peter ate and hung around the Gentiles, but as soon as the Jews came from Jerusalem, he acted as if he were not amongst them and told the Gentiles to become circumcised as well. Paul, however, was not going to stand by and allow this to undermine what the Lord had told him to do and preach. The Galatians needed to be reminded that one could not be saved by their works for if they could, Jesus’ work on the cross would have been in vain.

Abraham was given the promise of salvation prior to his circumcision and not afterwards. The Law was given after the promise and not before. God told Abraham that all nations would be blessed through him, but God did not tell him that they would be saved through the keeping of the Law because God already had a plan in which all mankind would be saved. Paul wrote: “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified” (Galatians 2:15-16). Paul told the Galatians that the Law was given so they could know what their transgressions were until the Seed came which was Jesus Christ. If it had not been for the Law, they would have been unaware of their sins, but the Law was a mirror but not their Savior. The false teachers felt that they could place the Gentiles under the law by undermining Paul’s authority as an apostle, but Paul let them know that in God, there was no favoritism, rather he had been with the Twelve or not. Since Jesus was the one who set him apart from birth, he was just as much an apostle as the ones who had walked with Christ when He had been on earth. Therefore, Paul was letting his enemies know that the message of salvation through faith was not going to be any less true regardless of who taught it.

There are those in today’s time who are preaching a message of legalism. They are telling people that you must keep certain Holy Days, abstain from certain foods, give a certain type of monetary gift, and observe other Mosaic ceremonial laws. Yet, what does the Bible say? If we place ourselves under the law, then we must observe the whole law. Jesus said: “…Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40). Jesus was summing up the Law in only two commandments that deal with loving God and loving one another. These two are to be done in our response to Christ’s love for us. Therefore, since we are saved not by our works, but by our faith in Him, we will have a desire to do good works, but we must never make the mistake of thinking that we are saved by them. Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg was quoted some time back as saying: “I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.” Somehow, he foolishly had the idea that his works would get him to Heaven. Well, the Bible lets us know that it does not work that way. We are justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and Him alone. Christ’s works are the only works that can save us and it is through His blood that we have been redeemed. Something to ponder….