Spiritual Tour

I was touched by the Lord when He asked me to put my name in the first verse of Galatians Chapter 3 verse 1... i.e. You crazy Alan! instead of You crazy Galatians!

As I put my name there, the impact of this passage is directly on me instead of the Galatians. I could recall I used to read this passage and think that this passage is only meant for the Galatians. The Lord used this same passage to deal with my religiosity and set me free from the legalistic environment that I was in. This time around, as the Lord asked me to put my name in there again, my spirit is quickened and encouraged. My spirit-man gave praises to the Lord for He had called me out of that religious sheep pan ...!

Try to fill your name in the blank below and have a quick spiritual tour through this passage together with the Holy Spirit. Let Him reveals to you the status of your Christian life, so that you will know whether you are walking in faith or by the observance of the Law. You will also know whether you are depending on His grace or your own effort...

Galatians Chapter 3 ~ The Message

1 You crazy ________! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it's obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.

2-4 Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God's Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren't smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!

5-6 Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? Don't these things happen among you just as they happened with Abraham? He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God.

7-8 Is it not obvious to you that persons who put their trust in Christ (not persons who put their trust in the law!) are like Abraham: children of faith? It was all laid out beforehand in Scripture that God would set things right with non-Jews by faith. Scripture anticipated this in the promise to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed in you."

9-10 So those now who live by faith are blessed along with Abraham, who lived by faith—this is no new doctrine! And that means that anyone who tries to live by his own effort, independent of God, is doomed to failure. Scripture backs this up: "Utterly cursed is every person who fails to carry out every detail written in the Book of the law."

Faith is what we trust, not what we do...