Erase the grey

Galatians 5: 13-26

“You my brothers were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature. Rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in one single command: love your neighbor as yourself. So I say, live by the spirit, and you will not satisfy the desires of the sinful nature.”

After the sharply rebuking the Galatians, Paul puts things in perspective: it is not hard to know when you are being drawn into the wrong company:  When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Paul is saying there is no grey are here, unless we want to create one. In other words, nobody needs to tell differentiate between right and wrong for you. If you listen to the testimony of a reformed criminal, alcoholic or anyone whose lived in the dark side, they often talk of how their conscience convicts them. But they usually numb that conscience with the pursuit of a bigger kick. Paul points out that the line between right and wrong, light and darkness, evil and good is clear as day and night. We are the ones who complicate things, who paint black and white then some grey. Often the grey is because we want to stifle the conscience a little. It is a control issue.

On the other hand, there is no doubt as to what is good. The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. No law can stand against this kind of fruit. They are universally accepted.  Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.  Paul is saying…don’t you say you didn’t know. Since you belong with Christ, erase the grey area. Leave the acts of sinful nature where they belong: at the cross of Christ. Go on, grow up to produce the kind of fruit that comes from someone who has been set free.

Stay your course

Galatians 5: 1-12

“You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough…”

It only takes a little yeast to raise a bowl of dough. It only takes a little of distraction to derail a train off its tracks. Some months ago, a relatively young woman won the hearts of Kenyans with her brilliant fight for a just cause. She was hailed the rising star in her profession. However that star was quickly dimmed when she was distracted from what she was really good at, into a vicious profession outside of her professional league. Once inside the unfamiliar territory she found a game where participants play by different, not so honest rules. A rabbit trail with twists and turns that ultimately cost the very prize she was after. Since then her light has dimmed from the public scene as swiftly as she had shot to fame. Who cut shot-circuited this brilliant star?

The Galatians are in a similar situation. Paul notes that previously they were doing so well in their faith. They were the model Christians, Paul’s pride, only to be lured from a straight course into a rabbit trail.  Rabbit trails (actually more like hare trails, because rabbits are domesticated creatures that only play in the pen) lead from maze upon maze. Only hares know how to skirt through their own mazes. Even dogs can’t beat a hare in his own territory. Paul makes a strong warning: Stay your course. Mark my words, if you let yourselves be dragged into a different race other than the one Christ has set for you (for Galatians, to be circumcised), you will have to play the whole game, and that by someone else rules. Do you want to be enslaved again? I don’t think so. Stay in the race that Christ has marked out for you.

There goes a Christ-ian!

Galatians 3: 23-4:31

“My dear children, now that you have accepted Christ, now that you have been baptized into him, now that you are no longer slaves to the sinful nature, now that you share in the blessings of Abraham, Oh that you would allow Christ to truly be formed in you!”

New born babies are cute. We love to mollycoddle, to ooh and ah, to fuss over them. We particularly make a sport of comparing their features with those of the parents. Nose this, mouth that; forehead dad, eyes mum etc. Sometime this year, a man in Nyeri walked into a hospital to see the baby that his wife had just delivered. He was shocked to be introduced an unmistakably foreign looking baby, apparently fathered by a foreigner working in road construction in the area. Of course gutter press had a field day with that one.

Paul likens his feelings for the straying Galatians to the experience of a mother during childbirth. Mixed feelings are wrapped in tender pains and joy and such longing. The words are actually sigh from somewhere deep in his heart, “Oh my dear children for whom I’m in the pains of childbirth”! His earnest desire is that these Christians will grow to resemble Christ. They should not take after the stray strangers who are misleading them to a different gospel. He says to them, “You are much-loved by Christ. You have been baptized in his name. You have been admitted into the family of God, been made heirs to God’s great promises. How can you not look like Christ? How can you take after strangers? Think about it, it doesn’t add up! You have to look like him: in his love for those who are hurting (recall all those people he healed?). His humility in the face of mockery (recall his persecutors?); in his aversion towards pride and self-aggrandizement (remember when the devil tempted him?); in his to compassion for others (remember how he forgave the sinners, how he made meals for the hungry, how he visited with outcasts?); in surrender of his own life so that the whole world would be saved (recall his death on the cross?)?”

Friends, you are not illegitimate children. Oh that Christ Jesus would be formed in you! Don’t sell yourself short to the lies of the illegitimate identity of a different gospel. If you do, you will have yourself to blame when the illusions leave you to hang out dry all by yourself. Instead, embrace your place in the family of Christ, so that anyone who looks at you says, “Wow, there goes a Christ-ian! Definitely looks like Christ! What does He give them to turn out like that?”