The Central Moment

The yoke of religious slavery can be very real. It replaces the freedom of life in Jesus. It puts all the pressure on us and causes in us a striving to measure up that becomes both frustrating and exhausting. But the simple gospel of Christ sets us free to live freely and with hope-filled joy.

Jesus said that no one can come to God except through him. There is a human arrogance that says we can reach God by paths of our own choosing. While it is true that there are many ways of accessing the spiritual world, only by the way of Jesus will we reach God. Jesus is and always will be the way, the truth and the life.

Divine healing powerfully marked the ministry of the Apostle Paul, and yet he himself struggled with illness in a way that ironically opened the Galatians to the gospel. This apparent paradox is not fully explained, but the love of God’s people shone through to Paul. Now, however, things were changing -- leaving Paul perplexed in a different way.

We are called to live out radical holiness in Christ. But, unfortunately, there is also a counterfeit that is rooted in external rituals and religious behaviors that do not set us free from sin’s power. So let’s renounce the religious spirit that too easily replaces true holiness and let’s experience transformed hearts in Christ.

As followers of Jesus, we are no longer slaves but sons and daughters of God himself. Our position is one of privilege, blessing, and hope as we humbly live out what it means to be adopted into God’s family. So now is the time to let go of the mindset of victimhood and slavery and take on the honor of calling God our Father.

Because of Jesus, everything that would sideline or disqualify us in the sight of God becomes irrelevant. We have a new identity, a new nature and a divine destiny because we are ‘in Christ’ -- justified by faith and heirs of God’s promise. May you see yourself today in the same way that God sees you ‘in Christ.’

All of God’s promises center in Jesus -- our Savior and soon coming King. Those promises do not depend on human performance, but they are received by faith. Our performance may be imperfect but the promise of God always prevails -- all the way from Abraham to you!

How can you know that you are justified before God and ready to meet him should he return today? Many Christians suffer from a spiritual insecurity that robs them of the assurance of their salvation. Yet Jesus bore the curse for us so that we can know for sure that we are saved and belong to him.

Reaching the nations has always been the heart of God, even in his dealings with Israel in the Old Testament. Although he made a covenant uniquely with Israel, out of it came a Savior by whom all nations will be blessed. It is a prophetic and yet missional truth that involves every one of us.

Why would the Apostle Paul accuse a New Testament church of being bewitched? The answer points directly to how we try to live the Christian life -- striving in our own flesh or living in the power of the Spirit. Simply being religious is never enough!

Old Testament law and New Testament grace—are they connected, or should they be? And how does the death and resurrection of Jesus affect that question? Fasten your seatbelts as Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wades into this issue as only he can.

The more we add to the gospel the more pressure we add to the lives of people. The simplicity of the gospel that centers on Jesus frees us. How can we truly be justified before God? How can we live free of guilt and with a transformed life? The simple gospel of Christ answers those questions with hope for everyone!

Some people like confrontation too much, but most of us like it too little. It’s one of the hardest responsibilities of leadership and one of the most difficult skills to learn and apply appropriately. It also requires a kind of courage and conviction that is stronger than the desire for people to like us.

God has no favorites but, according to the Apostle Paul, he does want us to remember the poor. In this fascinating passage from his letter to the Galatians we get a peek into the dynamic and sometimes tense relationships between high level early church leaders who still cared for the spiritually and physically poor.

The prevalence of false teachers and aberrant doctrine in the church has been amplified by technology and social media. “If it’s on the internet it must be true” is an adage that will leave you in the ditch. Only the foolish believe it. Yet holding to orthodox Christian faith and sound doctrine is mission critical to the future of the church.

Anonymity can become God’s tool in our lives. Who we associate does make a difference. We tend to become like the people we spend the most time with, but that was not the Apostle Paul’s situation. After meeting Christ he stayed largely on his own until God had him take center stage in the ministry he had called him to.

What do we do with our pasts? Sometimes our pasts haunt us, sometimes we feel crippled by them, and sometimes they can make us wonder whether we have missed the call of God in our lives. But Paul confidently declared that none of those things have the final word because of the gospel’s power.

People-pleasing is a huge trap. Whether it be juvenile peer pressure, or the temptation to compromise our ethics in order to please a boss, or caving into worldliness to make a spouse happy -- if we are not careful we can end up in the same place that Jesus’ critics ended up. They loved the approval of people more than the approval of God.

Let the gospel be the gospel. That was the Apostle Paul’s plea in his letter to the Galatian believers. Don’t sophisticate it, don’t add to it, don’t pervert it -- in short, don’t change it! May we hear that same warning 2000 years later!

Galatians is one of the earliest letters that we have from the Apostle Paul. Located in what is now central Turkey, the Galatian believers were being influenced by teachings and priorities that took the focus off Jesus. It’s the same danger that Christ’s church faces today.

In the western world, we may see relatively little persecution for our faith in Jesus… but Satan has another strategy. One to distract us and water down our faith. So may we look to the example of Pergamum as we remain faithful to Jesus.

We’d all prefer God to lead us through open doors, but sometimes he uses closed doors, instead, to reposition us for his plans. That was the case for Paul, and it brought about the spread of the gospel throughout Europe. So remember, our delays are not his delays, and our detours are not his detours.

Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was the central church for the Christian world for nearly 1000 years, and it set the bar high for the magnificent cathedrals to come. But as impressive as these buildings are, God’s heart is to find a people to dwell among, not a structure.

The kingdoms of the world come and go... Byzantium became Constantinople, which became Istanbul. But God's Kingdom will never end, and we have access to it if we'll just commit our lives and our ways to him.

As The Central Moment comes to you from Turkey, we're reminded of the significance of Paul's missionary journeys, and the good news of Jesus' revolutionary message that relentlessly invaded our world.