6/25 - Galatians 5

Gal 5
I talked with my bible study group last night about these 'moments' I have where I truly am focused on God and sincerely desire to follow Him at all costs. I'll generally have this experience sometimes after church or Bible study or even while blogging. These heightened moments of spirituality, I don't think they're disingenuous by any means, but don't seem to last very long. If this were sports, you might say I'm a streaky player who experiences periods of greatness and then again periods of equal and opposite mediocrity. My challenge is: how do I translate these experiences from 'moments' into a lifestyle? I think the problem is my tendency to refocus on my wants & desires and less on God's.

Galatians 5:1: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." Christianity offers us a tremendous amount of freedom and thank God it does. This is a challenge, however, because this liberty we have can be dangerous if used incorrectly. What we eat, the clothes we wear, the entertainment we choose - none of these things get us in or out of heaven. That's not to say that these things don't have consequences and, more importantly, may not be what God wants for us. Taking part in any of our various earthly pleasures, whether inherently sinful or not, can be dangerous for this reason and can put us in conflict with the first & second commandments. Hence Paul's warning - do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. His message to the Galatians was not to be entangled with legalism because they had been convinced by a false teaching that circumcision was necessary for salvation and this undermined the grace of God - the only means by which salvation is offered. No matter what our 'yoke of bondage' is, we shouldn't allow ourselves to be so easily drawn back to the things that God has called us from. Easier said than done I suppose.

I guess it comes down to relationship. There's nothing wrong with having perfect church attendance, doing community service, giving to the poor or paying tithes unless your motive is wrong. Are we trying to earn heaven points or genuinely offering ourselves as a sacrifice of gratitude to the Saviour? The fallacy of the first act (or one fallacy at least) is the tendency to stray away from it because the focus is you, not God. Honestly, I have a lot of work to do to get to the point where my actions are fully rooted in my love and gratitude for Christ. This takes an intimate relationship with God, and I pray I can get closer to Him daily so my actions will please Him. I'm not sure this blog is making as much sense as I hoped it would, but the whole point is that I want my actions to flow out of a love relationship with God & not a legalistic approach to spirituality.