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Galatians 1
"For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ." Galatians 1:10.
I have to remind myself often that the moment anything I am doing becomes about what other people think, it has started to be about me and stopped being about God. I have stopped being about God. And that scares me. As it ought.
"I lie not," Galatians 1:20.
Paul it's okay, we believe you.
Galatians 2
"I live by the faith of the Son of God..." Galatians 2:20
Every religion places its faith in something. Ours is in the real deal, the true Son of God. Without the Son of God, we could just say, Oh I have faith in cucumbers, or I place my faith in zebras. Faith in humanitarian issues, faith in environmental efforts, faith in unBiblical progressive ideas. Fill in your brilliant blank. We can do that, but we won't have any Holy Spirit action going on and so any other religion ultimately gets us nowhere. Religion is simply a belief system based on faith. Roger that? Bravo tango. Charlie foxtrot. That's a copy, over. Sometimes people who are married to pilots think they know like three things about airplanes? And then start talking that way. Just for fun.
Galatians 3
"O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth?" Galatians 3:1
Might need to be asking myself if I get off track in my faith: O less than triumphant chick, who hath bewitched you? And then let their bewitching bewitch no more. Be off with you and your bewitchfulness.
Galatians 4
"God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father." Galatians 4:6
So, did the funky rock group ABBA actually know they were naming themselves after the Father? One has to wonder, as one spins around with Jennifer Brett to the song Dancing Queen. For real though, having the Spirit in our hearts is huge.
"Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?" Galatians 4:16
Preach it, Paul. We can handle some truth. We's not cho enemay. Shoot. Mm-hm.
He talks about Abraham's two sons here, Ishmael and Isaac, and speaks of the true lineage in this way, "Which things are an allegory, for these are the two covenants: the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.... but Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all." Galatians 4:21-28.
So Paul is telling us that we are the children of the eternal promise and are after the Spirit. That is, we as believers are of the free, having come the way of Isaac and not Ishmael. Unlike the guy in Moby Dick.
Just have to add my personal, mildly grumpy evolution comment here that, when thinking of this passage, it's hard not to realize that people are in fact getting dumber rather than evolving into higher intellectual greatness. He's saying some brainy cool stuff here and this is, like, really old writinnng, okayyyy? Compared to what is being thought and written now, we are sort of the intellectual equivalent of kindergartners.
Galatians 5
"Stand fast," Galatians 5:1. Yes sir Paul, we are standing fast, "therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."
He is imploring us to stay strong and not slip back into our old ways. I love the way he puts it: "be not entangled." There's this constant struggle, this constant war between our Spirit and our flesh. We have to keep our eyes on the Lord, else we are vulnerable to get all tangled up in a bunch of whatever. We are smart enough to be aware of this. Rather than unawares.
"Ye did run well: who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?" Galatians 5:7.
Who's been hindering you girlfriend? Probably those same people that were bewitching you before. I've reached my hindering and my bewitching limit. Just step it on back. Our God knows that in the past we have been able to run the race well, we can fight the good fight, and we are able to not let anyone hinder us in that.
"This day I say then, Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." Galatians 5:16.
God is telling us how to have victory over the struggles of the flesh. We all have 'em.
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." Galatians 5:22-23.
Can't arrest me for doing any of that. There's no law against these attributes. There can be no objection against any of these attributes. They are not something to work for and strive for and pride oneself in, however. It's the other way around. All of these traits are what is about to flow out of us when we are tight with the Lord on a daily basis. And the only way to be tight with Him is to spend time with Him. Which we are doing right now, yay us.
Galatians 6
"And let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." Galatians 6:9.
I'm fainting not.