Be With Me: 7 Minutes of Biblical Wonder

Christ either is of NO advantage or He is of GREAT advantage.  The Galatians have dropped the ball.  They started well.  They fell into old habits of thinking.  It matters. Having Jesus in our lives is supposed to be our SECRET WEAPON.  Having Him near is supposed to make a difference.  A good difference.  An ADVANTAGE.  Our thinking, our view of God is to spill out in the actions of love and serv...

Abraham serves as the shining good example of how we are to have faith.  Abraham also serves as the shining bad example of doing it exactly wrong . The fact that God put both accounts into the Bible just amazes me. For a season, Abraham and Sarah take matters into their own hands, by taking matters into their own pants about a promised child.  They sin against God and Hagar as they try to perpetua...

Could you say, " Become as I am ."?  That is, could you tell your young mentee to be like yourself? With a PERIOD at the end of the sentence ? Paul did.  We'll explore this concept by making a few exceptions. Perhaps we'd say something more like this: Become like I am EXCEPT... for the way I drive.  Other people are just idiots. for my giving habits.  I give some. The rest is m...

Do we surround ourselves with people that only say we are terrific? The Galatians had some false-teachers that engaged in the deceit of FLATTERY.  It was like they were getting a participation-trophy just for back-sliding into their old ways. "Yea! You are wonderful." Christianity is not always like that.  I so admire anybody who becomes a believer and shows up to a good church each Sund...

What is it like to be KNOWN BY GOD?  What is it that He sees when He looks inside of us? What if it isn't perfect? How does He tolerate us? What does He see that "makes it OK?" and He doesn't smite us? His forbearance obviously tells us something about HIS Character.  It is all for His glory, and lots of that is not understandable to us just at this moment.  If He knows we aren...

If your "birth mother" was a law that just frustrated you because of your inadequacy, to be "adopted" out of it into the family of God, you'd be pretty JAZZED by it.  The new, spiritually-adopted kid CRYS OUT in joy, "ABBA, Father"!  It is an intimate, personal name for God akin to our DADDY. Like the Ronco TV commercial, "But wait, there's MORE!" ...

The purpose of the Law is to make sure you know that you have lost the war of trying to earn your way to heaven; of accomplishing your way to God. It is supposed to imprison and suck the life out of your spiritual self. All the while, there is a personal tutor, teacher, guardian who stays with you and makes soul-commentary: "I don't think you are making it on your own; You are losing thi...

If you are sick and tired of your sin, you are in exactly the place God wants you.  He sent a law, let's say the 10 commandments, to literally, "frustrate the hell out of you".  That is, the perfection of God's law just tells us we aren't going to make it that way. Paul uses two fantastic pictures of what this is like.  The first is of PRISON.  We are jailed, and held capt...

"The Law" definitely gets a bad rap in the sense that in the end, we are "cursed by the law." But the story doesn't stop there.  Jesus rides in and perfectly accomplishes the law, becomes the perfect sacrifice and saves those of the world who have faith.  So, in that sense, we are all SAVED BY THE LAW.  It is just not by OUR accomplishment of the law.  It is by HIS accompl...

Paul is yelling at the Galatians to have faith.  He uses the great Abraham who gets an opportunity to make this deal with God: No land, No children, No food, No heirs, No freedom, and No unmodified male genitalia. Why would anybody take this deal? Well, because there are a couple of kickers in the deal: You get ME. The PERSON of God. I am your very great reward You get PROMISES of all that good st...

Faith is the special-sauce that makes what is true of Jesus before the Father, true of us.  We ride His coattails of crucifixion and its' effects; and Christ living within and helping me with real life right now. Paul yells at the Galatians.  If you are living the old way, it is nullifying the great things Jesus did for you.  You are extinguishing Jesus.  You are killing Christ and His effect...

As if the call to be on "Team Crucifixion" wasn't impossible enough, Paul now calls the Galatians to be on "Team Not-Living".  It too is impossible without the critical ingredient: FAITH. He's telling them that they are now Christians and here is what it means.  This is how you should be acting in the here and now.  He is here to help us with the lives we are ACTUALLY...

Paul says, "I have been crucified with Christ."  But he actually has NOT.  He's not been up on the Roman crucifixion machine.  So, how then is it true? When Manchester United plays, its' fans declare, "WE WON today." Really? Did a million people strap on their cleats and shin guards? No.  What they mean is that by ASSOCIATION, by attachment, they participate in the wi...

A famous preacher said something like, a "sermon is that which leaves you happy." Well, not exactly. You gotta be a little unhappy to receive the happy.  Today is that day. Here is the bad news: we cannot be right with God without the help of Jesus we don't earn this help of Jesus by our actions, words, or traditions we cannot fix this ourselves by being good enough The only thing t...

In 48 AD, Paul yells at Peter for disobeying something the Lord clearly told him in 38 AD.  It was very clear.  He sent a vision.  He repeated it 3 times.  Peter verbalized the lesson. Peter demonstrated understanding of the lesson by his behavior with Cornelius in Caesarea.  He defended the lesson before inquiry with his sending church in Jerusalem.  THEN HE FORGOT. When Paul finds out about this...

Paul is going to defend the true gospel from one that is distorted, deserted, different; a gospel-contrary.  To do so, he is discussing his ministry qualifications.  Paul has been ENTRUSTED with the true gospel; he's been given a real grace by the Lord; and the same Lord is at work in the gentiles as in the Jews. We are part of the same family. Now can people in the family of God have to go t...

People want to make sure Paul, 14 years after his conversion, is really a Christian.  Paul gathers the evidence and presents it to the Jerusalem church.  He accounts for the time, because he's been accused of NOT BEING A CHRISTIAN (Acts9:26) 3 years into that 14 years.   No wonder Paul has to "give his credentials" to the Galatian believers.  It took him a long time to win the trust...

Paul is making a defense of the Gospel.  To do so, he displays his qualifications a bit.  ie: Hey, these are the reasons that you should listen to me. They are that he has had a pretty special experience with God.  He recalls a dramatic conversion that starts with actually seeing Jesus and ends with his blindness.  So I got visited by Jesus. I did not recognize him (embarrassing for a guy who prid...

If we could only know what pleases God. Well, wait no further.  the Bible tells us at least one of the things that pleases Him.  It pleases God to reveal Himself. He just likes it. It is probably then an activity that we should avail ourselves thoroughly in. Paul starts with his efforts being knuckle headed and zealous for the wrong thing.  And then God steps in and does His pleasurable work of re...

Join me in the next book chronologically in the New Testament.  It is Galatians   and boy is Paul MAD.  He sets the stage with a nice little greeting and then lays into them with observations of desertion, distortion, discarding and a "gospel contrary."  With this start, we will begin to unravel what Paul is so Jazzed up about. When Paul was in the region of Galatia, first they wanted to...

Some ended up BELIEVING. Some DISBELIEVED, which I think means  anything but YES . The newly appreciated Holy Spirit is doing His work.  Paul says that just open your eyes and ears, the Holy Spirit has been SAYING stuff to your fathers, through the prophets for CENTURIES.  Now He is doing His job in helping you remember it. There is some good concluding emphasis on how you are to be a good Christi...

Good News: Paul finally makes it to Rome. Yet, he needs the support and encouragement of local believers because he is a prisoner and has nothing.  They share their "units of encouragement" with him. Paul has a guard and a chain and an apparent inability to go to the temple so he calls the Jewish leaders to him. He doesn't revile or attack the people who have accused him.  In fact,...

Paul, recently shipwrecked, imprisoned and bereft of stuff finds BROTHERS and SISTERS in the family of God.  These are people he's never met before.  They have something that he needs: COURAGE.  He lacks UNITS OF COURAGE, so to speak.  He needs a recharge of courage.  He gets some of THEIR courage.  That is, Paul "TAKES (their) courage." How do you get a people like that?  Generally...

Imagine going to the grocery store. Everybody you see there has a poisonous viper or two attached to their limbs.  That is, they are getting immediate, proportional and specific judgment for their falling short of holiness. Everybody should be swelling up and dropping dead in aisle 9. "Imminent penalty clean up crew to aisle 9 ASAP." We are all in big trouble, except for the fact that Go...

Paul and all who sail with him are "brought safely through" as their ship crashes on the island of Malta.  The Lord was true to His word.  He did grant Paul and "all who sail with you" their lives. There is of course, near treachery as the soldiers wish to preemptively kill the potentially escaping prisoners.  They are prevented by the Centurion.  I am hopeful that just maybe h...