This morning I felt like I should spend some time in Galatians, chapter four. Recently, many of my reflections have been encouragement in this strange time we are living in, and these verses from Paul's letter seemed like a strange addition, but as I reflected I saw a deeper connection. Here are the verses - Galatians 4:4-7 NIV:
[4] "But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, [5] to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. [6] Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba , Father.” [7] So you are no longer a slave, but God's child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir."
I have spent quite a bit of time reflecting on our adoption to the family of God, and it is such good news. This morning I was thinking about these verses in light of being redeemed from under the law, which really, in context, is referring to the Jewish people. Paul is writing this to the Galatians, most of whom were not Jews, and thus not under the Law. Rather than focusing on this this specific legal conversation, I felt like the message of the Lord to me today was to look at my life and determine what "laws" He is setting us free from in these present days!
Much has been said on-line by people of faith concerning this time of resting in God, a reset of sorts, and I think that is true. I also think we are seeing the Lord setting us free from previous expectations of what the Church should look like, and how the Church should act, and what services should entail, and a whole assortment of "religious" ideas that have become 'law' for many congregations. The term "this is the way we do" anything should cause us to pause, and consider why we do things a certain way. Have we become so used to things a certain way, that we can't entertain change? I think that this time of "sheltering in place" is causing all of us to reconsider our faith, and the essential components of our faith life. If we find ourselves desiring to just go back to the way things were before, we might need to press in a bit deeper to the Lord, He wants us to grow and experience increase in our lives personally, as well as corporately.
In the same way that the Galatians were being sold a gospel-plus (this is essentially what the circumcision party was pushing) we might have grown up under a gospel-plus expression of faith! The Christian faith does not require beautiful buildings, choirs and professional sounding worship teams, it does not require professional pastors and teachers, it does not require Sunday services, the repeating of rote prayers, or any of a number of things we have come to associate with our faith! Our faith is fundamentally about our personal relationship with the Lord! He is who we interact with, and who we worship with our lives. Singing and music is wonderful, but that is not worship. Worship is laying down our lives to embrace relationship with our Lord! Living our faith is so much more than Sunday attendance, or church services, it is all about the day to day decisions we make about how we speak, and how we think, and how we live our lives, how we love our families and friends, and allowing our faith to impact and change us in all of these areas. We are meant to be followers of Christ, every moment of every day.
I believe that we are experiencing an opportunity for us to stop and think about what it means to truly be a son and daughter of God, for again that is what our faith is all about, relationship with Him! Let us stop and ask the Lord to show us what is most important, and let us choose to make those a priority in our lives, even after our present "shelter in place" restrictions are lifted. Let us take a serious look at our church, at our worship experience, at our expression and lets lose the gospel-plus stuff.
I pray that we would come out of this time with a deeper sense of our relationship with our Lord, with each other and how we as sons and daughters of God should live our lives. I pray that the Lord would set us free from the 'law' of expectations and our gospel-plus experience.
Amen!
May the Lord bless you, and keep your safe!
Sam
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