“You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?” Gal 3:1-3
Paul spends much of his time writing, pleading with the new believers to not get sidetracked, but to continue to keep their eyes on their Savior, walking in the Spirit, and receiving from Him the grace and strength they need to live out their faith.
But some of them were being lured into believing that salvation was Jesus and…
That and can be anything. For the Galatians it was Jesus and the law.
People were telling the believers in Galatia they needed to follow the law to be justified. They needed to rely on themselves and their works, in effect, luring them away from the grace they received by faith in Christ. And Paul knew that as they moved toward reliance on the law, on themselves, faith in Christ would be left behind.
Paul said they’d been bewitched – to malign, that is, to speak harmful untruths about, speak evil of, slander, defame, injurious, to fascinate by false representations.
The enemy’s ways haven’t changed in 2000 years. They haven’t changed since the garden. he is the originator of fake news.
Sometimes his ways are as blatant as they were in Galatia, but oftentimes the method is more inconspicuous and gradual.
New believers can be easy prey for the enemy. The wolf enters the pen and the lambs are still naive and easily coerced. They can be convinced to do anything other than the simplicity of putting their faith in Jesus and following Him daily. Surely it can’t be that easy, he tells them.
Older believers can be led away, too, if they get lazy in their walk, let their relationship with Christ grow cold, or fall into sin, and instead of repenting, they gradually move away from their faith in Christ to reliance on their works to earn favor, forgiveness, grace, and love.
And no matter how long a person has been in Christ, anyone who lets the reading and studying of God’s Word slide and along with it discernment and sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, any “inspirational” meme or thought going around social media that sounds good, but is deeply theologically flawed, can be used to alter our course of thinking and begin to lead us away from a pure and truthful faith in Christ.
And as individuals, and whole churches (made up of individuals), it’s easy to get past those early days, weeks, and years after salvation (or after church planting) and begin to go on autopilot. Instead of relying on the Holy Spirit we gradually start just doing because we’ve done it for so long, forgetting that we’re living a life of faith, a life that requires the Holy Spirit to daily move in and through us.
It is Christ’s life we live now, not our own. We cannot live it in our own strength or with our own human wisdom. We can never presuppose we know what direction He wants us to go, what He wants us to do, and when He wants us to do it.
Paul exhorted the Christians in Galatia to not go back to trying to earn salvation or God’s love and grace by works of the law. By trying to be perfect. If that could ever be the case then Christ died in vain. Trying to earn our way to God through works says we don’t need the Holy Spirit any longer and we quench Him from moving in our lives.
If we try to finish in our flesh, we forfeit the strength and courage He desires to give us to live out our lives for Him, and the love and grace and peace He wants to fill us with.
There are moments in our faith, whether at 6 months in or 30 years, where we can press in to Christ harder, or we can take a step back, and begin to rely on ourselves.
All of us will have those moments, and most of us will choose at some point, to one degree or another, to rely on ourselves for a time.
The good news is God’s grace toward His children doesn’t run out.
Anytime we’ve been relying on ourselves and looking around we realize we’re not following Jesus anymore, all we need to do is call Him.
Do the thing we did at first: return to our first love. Believe in Christ and repent. Turn our minds back to Him and His Word. Put our faith and trust in our Savior, and ask Him to fill us afresh with His Holy Spirit that He might lead us and give us wisdom to serve Him all the rest of our days.
