Liberty, Legality, and the Messes We Make

This morning I was up before the sunrise, and although I enjoy my sleep now, it reminded me of the season in my life when I worked for Starbucks and opened the store more than half of the week.  The way our store sat, there were two walls of windows that met each other in a corner looking out to the east and I could watch the sunrise over the hills of Southern California.  It was just the right timing, because the busyness and rushing of getting the store open had passed but there wasn't a morning rush yet and I could make drinks on the bar and watch the sky change colors and be lost in thoughts and in prayer as the colors changed from black to grey to brilliant oranges and reds and finally settling into a normal set of colors for the world.  It was like magic every morning.  My own display of fireworks.  It never stopped being awe inspiring.  

This morning though, there were no purples and oranges and reds, at least not the way I thought there would be.  I sat in my grey chair in the corner of my room and listened to a thunderstorm roll through.  That made think of Texas.  There's nothing quite like reading your Bible in the still of the morning and listening to the growl of thunder.  It was beautiful.  And as I finished reading, I looked out my window and saw this:

Oh man, I just LOVE rainbows.  I love my Promise Keeper.  I needed to see His promise as a banner of love across the sky this morning.  He is so faithful.  The last couple of weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions for me.  Some really great stuff is going on!  Jesus is working and moving and growing and its fabulous.  Some really hard stuff has gone on too.  Personal stuff that has made me get down on my knees and beg for the the Spirit of Truth to lead me into all truth.  Hard and weird and painful, but fruitful too, I think.  At least, Im praying I will be fruitful in this.  This season has been a bit John 12 style around here..."unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain."  There can be fruit if I let it happen.  I can't make it happen, that's Gods crazy mysterious working for sure.  But I have to be sure to let Him.  Some things have had to die in me.  My flesh.  My desire to be justified.  My desire to have my heart seen and not read wrong.  Even the little things that I cling to, that don't look to be wrong, I have to let go of.  I have to let go of ANY rights that I have and just let Him drop me in the ground and bear some fruit.  I don't get to pick the methods.  But by His grace, I DO get to be used.  That is mind blowing to me.

And can I just say that my mind has been blown this week by the love of God, but also by the love of His people.  Seriously, I have had so many people just shower the grace and love of Jesus on me and it has been so so sweet.  Thank you for praying for me!  Thank you for loving me!!!  Thank you for seeing that although I am way not perfect, I love Jesus and I love you.  It means so much to be showered by His love through you guys.  So thank you.  Thank you for taking the time to say kind things.  Thank you for just sticking with me over the years and knowing my quirks.  The love of the body of Christ, even spread out over the entire United States, is overwhelming.  Thank you.  And I love you too.  Like really, I could spend the next ten posts giving some shouts outs and not cover even the tiniest portion of it.  You girls are amazing.

Thanks for joining me through Galatians, too.  It's been so fun!  I've gotten to know some new people through this too which is way cool.  This week, we are going to devour the majority of chapter 5.  Go read 5:1-16.  This is some good stuff.  Watch out though, I might get a little rant-esque.  This is some serious stuff here.

Oh verse 1...stand fast!  I love that image, don't you?  Don't let go.  It's got the image of a boat that is held fast to a dock or shore.  A storm can roll through and that boat might shake, but it isn't going anywhere.  That's what I want to be!  I want to be tied up inside of Jesus so that when the world shakes and rumbles, I know that I am secure.  It also warns not to become entangled again in a yoke of bondage.  This is super key.  We CANNOT get caught up in earning our right standing before God.  Because thats stupid.  We can't ever earn that.  DUH!  Right?  But we can get tangled up and be kept busy with the idea that we have to do enough to earn His favor.  Cause then we're always so self focused that we aren't all about the Kingdom work.  We can't get past ourselves and into the deeper stuff Jesus wants to do.  And that’s not good! For sure.

BUT...13-15 are a giant warning and this really hit home for me as I read through this.  You see, I really feel like Jesus has done some cool stuff in my heart and in the hearts around me concerning legalism.  Like, for reals, it has been a beautiful season.  But, I also have to say that I have seen some stuff concerning legalism that gets me upset.  Well, alright, I guess I will just come out with it.  It seems to me that there are some people who cling so tightly to the concept that they will not be legalistic that they end up being legalistic about not being legalistic.  Well, now, that was clear huh.  Wow, I’m sorry.  Let me see if I can get this out a little better.  We do have liberty in Christ.  I have the freedom of knowing that whether I perform well or poorly, my Daddy loves me.  And that truly is freeing.  It is!!!  However, think of a family.  I think of my own. 

 I love my daughter.  
Even when she rolls her eyes at me.  
Even when she hides all the stuff she doesn’t feel like cleaning up under the desk so that her room appears clean so I won’t tell her to clean it (that’s an imagery lesson all by itself isn’t it!?!)  
Even when she lunges in ferocious anger after her brother in retaliation for the water he just squirted in her face.  
Even when she lies.  
And as she grows, she will do more junk for sure.  She can break my heart into tiny pieces and I will still love her.  She will still be my kid.  Her poor behavior will never make her less mine.  But, it will make our lives uncomfortable, even miserable depending on the circumstance.  And it WILL effect her relationships with those around her.  That’s what I see going on in these verses.  Don’t get caught up in legalism, don’t get caught up in proving your worth before God.  But also, don’t get caught up in your liberty either.  You've got to get caught up in Jesus! Whether you’re living legalistically or liberally, I think there is a common problem.  There is the tendency in both to constantly be looking at self (to check and see how you’re doing) and at others (because you’ve got the right way and you want to tell everyone else).  Oh man, I’m not making sense am I?  In my dealings with people who struggle with legalism, the effect it had on them was much the same as with people who claim to be free from it.  A legalistic person often measures up their worth with other people, is constantly looking around to see if others are better or worse than them.  It’s a pretty insecure place to be.  I’ve been there.  I know.  But, from the people who claim to “be free” I personally have seen a lot of the same stuff.  They seem to always be looking at others and measuring whether or not other people are as free as they are...labeling others as still under a yoke of bondage...always trying to prove that they are free, and scrutinizing the actions of others, sometimes even passing judgements on the hearts of others.  I mean, I get that Paul got fired up about stuff.  It’s good to be sure of what you’re sure of.  But it’s not good to constantly be in a place where you’re criticizing everything around you.  Paul spent four chapters talking passionately about the need to be free from a performance based relationship to God, so we know it’s important.  But I feel like this is placed in there because Paul knew that there would be people who get free from legalism and then end up caught up in being free and pointing out how others aren’t as free as they are and then comes the junk.  Jesus knew this would happen.  The Holy Spirit inspired this passage because He knew we would need to read it.

I think the danger comes when it becomes about US.  Which is what 13-15 are all about.  When we get caught up in the junk that flows out of all of this, we end up biting and devouring each other.  We make it about us and the standards we see.  But what about the things we can't see?  What about leaving room for our hearts to be flawed, to miss something good in someone else.  I have been wrong about about people...have you?  We can’t judge the hearts of others!  If you are struggling with legalism, dude, GET FREE!  Jesus loves you.  If you find that you don’t struggle with legalism, but you’re struggling with always having a problem with other people because they aren’t “free enough,” because they are too rigid if they read the One Year Bible, because they aren’t as passionate about the things you’re fired up about (prayer, reaching the lost, whatever), dude Paul is clear.  You will end up biting and devouring those around you.  Sounds harsh.  But Paul is harsh.  He is harsh because it matters so much.  There is Kingdom work to be done and we can’t get to it if we’re all caught up in the junk.  You read the Bible the way you feel convicted to, and I will do the same.  As long as we’re reading the Bible, who cares how?  You get fired up about this and I’ll get fired up about that and we will both be used to stir up each other and see some awesome stuff happen.  There’s too much cool stuff happening to spend time biting and devouring each other.

So, what’s the answer to all of this?  Vs 16

So, walking in the Spirit is the answer.  We have to constantly take our own hearts to the cross and apply the gospel and then get up and LOVE our neighbor.  If you find you constantly have a problem with the people of God, then you’ve got to check your own heart.  Paul says in verse 13 to use liberty through love as a chance to serve one another.  Let’s make that our focus!  Not our church models.  Not our ideas on how to reach people. Not our criticism of each other, or how we think we could do things better.  Let love for Jesus and for His kids drive our actions.  If we are walking in the Spirit, then it’s all good!  Love will be agape love, not our own flawed love, and it will cover imperfections and the focus will be on Jesus, not self or others.  If we’re walking in the Spirit then we will see that played out in our interactions with each other, in our love and service to each other.  

And that’s where I want to live, right at His feet, sitting in His lap, just wherever He is.  And I need to be empowered by His Spirit to even do that!  Dude, pray for me!

I'm an HEIR, baby!

Okay, so I know this is quite a bit of ground to cover, but I am so stoked to be going over Galatians 3:26-4:31 today!  It all goes together and it is all SO AWESOME!  So go, read it!  And be ready to share it with me.  (p.s. for those of you who have had trouble leaving a comment in the comment section it has been really cool to hear from you through Facebook and text.  You girls rock the house! Love you!)

As far as an update on us....oh man pray for us.  Jesus is wanting to do some crazy awesome stuff.  Like outside of the box kind of stuff.  Like crazy, we have to know this is Jesus kind of stuff.  And we are amped!  Sorry for being cryptic.  We are still praying, so when we hear from the Lord I will totally let you guys know what's up.  But pray for us, for wisdom, for open doors, for Christian.  This opportunity to work for My Green Home has really taken off and we are totally buying groceries regularly again and thats great!  But it does take a lot of his time and he wants to be sure he is dedicating time and prayer and energy into the vision God has given him for this place.  So yeah, your prayers are WAY appreciated.

Alrighty, lets dig in!

So this part is probably my favorite in like the whole Bible.  Okay, maybe it ties with a few other spots but it is definitely top ten.  This whole section is just so life changing!  We're talking about the difference between a son and heir...and a slave.  The difference between the access we have as a kid to cry out Daddy! and the contrast with the nasty slavery to legalism that we place ourselves under again when we lean on our works.  AGH!  SO MUCH GOOD STUFF IN HERE!

3:26-27 is the beginning of it all.  Through faith we have put on Christ and we are now His kids.  That's the beginning.  Not a cleaned up life.  Not a broken addiction to drugs, sex, alcohol.  The beginning is just what Jesus did!

vs 28 places us all on the same playing field.  There is no Jew nor Greek, no slave nor free, no male nor female, can I add in there that there is no "good enough"  "cute enough" "has well enough behaved kids"  "has a clean enough life".... we are "...all one in Christ Jesus."  Oh man, the freedom in that!  This is an area where I tend to fall down in.  Like I said in my last post, I tend to fall into the trap of comparison and man! that's an ugly place to live!  I want to live right here, at the foot of the cross where everyone is level.  Everyone is just loving Jesus and it is all GOOD!

vs29 is some GOOD STUFF.  I AM AN HEIR!!!!!!!!  I read that verse and I feel like I just won a million bucks.  I feel like those lame commercials that were on during daytime TV when I was a kid for the publishers clearing house (am I remembering that right?) when they knock on the door and say "you've won a bajillion dollars!  Here's your check." and the people look all shocked and surprised.  Dude, thats me with this verse!!!!  I am an heir.  And its according to His promise, not my works or worth apart from Him.  Oh man, I am one of those people who never wins games at a baby shower, my ticket is never called at a raffle, and I NEVER got picked for sports.  (I am lame and awkward so I don't blame anyone out there who didn't pick me for their team.  Im totally secure with my non-sporty self.)  But DUDE!  I am an HEIR!!!!  That means I am in line to receive the best stuff ever!  No check from publishers clearing house can touch that baby!  And it is apart from my own works.  It is according to HIS PROMISE which so rocks because then it is unchanging.  Completely outside of my messing up.  Cause I mess up.  A LOT.  Oh man, Jesus is so cool.

And then there's 4:6-7....
Because I am His kid, which I didn't make happen He did, He has given me His Spirit and the access to cry out to Him...Abba...which you guys know means the equivalent of Daddy.  Um yeah.  I could just stop right there.  I have a heavenly Daddy whose lap I can crawl into anytime I want...who is never too busy...who is never harsh...who longs to hear my heart and spend time with me...who has given me ACCESS into His presence.  Awe yeah! The End right there........ Except theres more!  It's like that box from Gramma at Christmas (or the one from my friend Ashley send that comes packed with Trader Joe's stuff)...there seems to always be more stuff in the box no matter how much cool stuff you pull out!  I'm no longer a slave!  I spent so many years being a slave to sin.  YUCKO.  just plain yuck.  Seriously, if you guys knew all the junk I did, you wouldn't let me near your kids.  Praise God for His redemptive work!!!!!!!!

BUT, don't we tend to do 4:9???  I know I have this tendency.  To return not to the vomit that was my old life, but to the weak and beggarly elements of bondage.  Not to my former yuck, but now I have the tendency to want to yoke myself under a bondage of slavery to performance.  It's not that doing well is bad.  But basing my standing before God on my performance is WAY BAD.   I love how Paul puts it there...weak and beggarly.  But dude!  We've been given all things that pertain to life and godliness!  Let's not sit near the ash heap!

Oh and vs 23.....Which do I want to be?  Of the flesh or of the Spirit?  Kind of makes it an easy choice, ya?

But vs28!  Oh beautiful vs 28!
I am not an Ishmael but I am an Isaac!  Oh I am so thankful!

And vs 30 rocks my world....Cast out the bondwoman....this is some sketchy ground to cover.

 Give me your thoughts, okay?  I'm feeling like it says that we have to cast out the things that aren't of the Spirit.  Be willing to be harsh with your fleshly tendencies.  Don't coddle your flesh!  Abraham was like the Bill Gates of his time.  He had tons of wealth, and he could have sent Hagar and Ishmael out with enough to set them up for life.  But he didn't.  He sent them out with a bread and a skin of water (Gen 21:14).  Seems kinda mean, ya?  But that is how we are to deal with our flesh.  Harshly.  Cut off the ties with it.  Burn bridges, so to speak.  Not in a legalistic way for sure.  I mean, duh, Galatians is fighting legalism.  But, by the power of the Spirit, CAST OUT THE BONDWOMAN.  That's going to mean something different for each of us.  I am praying in what that means for me right now.  I know for sure it means that as soon as I have dumb comparative thoughts, I have got to hand them over to Jesus and not coddle and nourish them in my mind.  We each have areas.  I remember when I was newly saved, I had the tendency to flirt with guys when they came through the line at Starbucks.  Sorry, is that too honest?  Well, anyway, I was newly saved and had come out of a life of desperately wanting a mans love and approval.  So, on the mornings I wore make up, I found myself flirting.  On the mornings I had forgotten to wear any, I found that I didn't flirt so much.  I kind of hid.  And I knew the flirting was wrong.  God had convicted me for sure, but I found I couldn't get myself to stop.  And the Lord said, deal harshly with it.  How about no make up?  WHOA right?  Cause make up isn't wrong.  In fact, to this day, I wish I knew how to put it on better.  I'm so lame at it.  But there isn't anything wrong with make up.  Isn't that legalistic?  No.  It wasn't.  It was a choice I made in order to deal harshly with my flesh.  It wasn't forever.  It didn't make me more godly.  In fact, it showed how NOT spiritually mature I was.  But it was one of the first times I ever made the decision to deal harshly with my flesh.  Am I making any sense?  I so don't want to come across legalistic.  Cause that's not cool.  But what are your thoughts?

The Comparison Trap

Oh man, this week has been BEAUTIFUL here in Colorado!  No more snow, tons of sunshine to run around in, and we even got to enjoy a pretty rocking thunderstorm which reminded all of us of home.  Seriously, my kids ran down the stairs squealing and yelling, "Thunder!"  It was great.  We sat on the porch like we used to when we lived in Texas and watched the storm roll through.  I actually sucked in a giant lung full of humid air and sighed with delight.  It's been a dry winter.

It's been a dry winter here, but I don't feel like it has been dry spiritually.  I feel like every single day, Jesus is knocking me over with something else I desperately need to GET and I can't even keep up with it all.  Like literally in the past three days I have had three different posts rolling around in my brain.  Don't worry, I wont yap at you forever today.  Theres a chunk of Galatians that I want to dig into with you but first I want to share something that has been CONVICTING my guts out this week.

Oh man, 1 Samuel is such a great book!  This week as I was reading through about 17-20ish, Saul really stuck out to me.  I mean, he started out so well.  Super humble and stuff.  I mean, the guy was hiding when Samuel wanted to anoint him.  You could basically feel that he knew he wasn't worthy.  But then you walk a little farther through the book and he begins to think pretty highly of himself and stops waiting on the Lord and taking things into his own hands.  Bad news bears right there.  Then, they come back in from battle and 1 Samuel 18:7 says:

"Saul has slain his thousands,
And David his ten thousands."

And Saul just sort of loses it here.  Like, he is a complete nutcase after this.  He is tossing spears at David.  Telling people he is going to kill him.  Taking it back.  More tossing of spears.  Eventually, Saul ends up tossing a spear at his own son!  WHOA!  What happened here, right?  Well, as I was praying this through, the Lord smacked me gently and said "Want to know what happened to Saul?  He got caught in the COMPARISON TRAP."

I totally know there was some other stuff going on here for sure, but this is an area that the Lord is trying to grow me in, and it was just such a beautiful parallel.

Saul couldn't hear the praise that people gave him, because the praise that those same people gave someone else was bigger, louder.  Saul didn't just want to be praised, he wanted to get the biggest best praise.  None of what he did mattered unless it was more than what David had done.  And so it ate away at him.  Everything was under suspicion.  It affected his relationships with others besides David.

And here we are at the point where I pour out my guts in personal application.  Promise you'll still love me?

This is so my problem, too.  Ouch.  There.  I said it.  We live in a very comparison based society.  Our flesh longs to compare.  And it's something my heart struggles with.  I'm okay with not having a perfectly clean house, as long as it's cleaner than most of my friends.  I'm okay with not being gorgeous or having great hair or a perfect figure, as long as everyone around me isn't too much better than me.  I'm okay with making mistakes in the spiritual side of things, as long as everyone else has made these same mistakes and won't judge me.  And if I fall short in one of these areas, my mind immediately goes to "okay, so she's better than me in this area, but I've so got her beat in this one."  Now, I will say that I don't usually think these thoughts out in such a clear way.  If I did, I would have to deal with myself and I would probably sin less.  HA!  But these are the quiet thoughts roaming around in the background noise of life and it STINKS.

I DON'T WANT TO LIVE IN THE COMPARISON TRAP!

When someone points out an area where I am weak, I don't want to immediately find their weak point so I feel better about me.  When someone else is praised for doing something awesome, I don't want my first reaction to be to find something great that I have done so I don't feel intimidated.  Isn't that what a lot of this is about?  Feeling intimidated.  Saul felt intimidated, that he might lose his throne.  He didn't know the character of David.  David was not after dethroning Saul!  But Saul lived the rest of his life defensive and intimidated and angry and boy that does NOT sound like a fun life to me.  But DUDE!    I live way too often in fear that I might lose my throne too.  BUT JESUS BELONGS ON THE THRONE, not me.  Don't we do this too? (Am I the only one?)  Have you never in your life shied away from a friendship with someone because their good qualities were so intimidating?  I have!  I am so thankful that Jesus has been working on that in me for years or I so wouldn't have been able to be friends with so many of you sweet ladies that I know.  But the part that really got me this week is this:

Can I rejoice when someone else rocks it?

Without comparison?

Without the need to see if I also measure up?

Without the need to point out to someone that I too am great at that?

Can I live with my eyes off of myself???

Isn't that really the issue here?  Saul was all about Saul because he had lost the closeness and dependency on God.  When it's all about me, its totally an indication that I have lost that closeness and dependency on the Spirits work in my life.

Which totally ties into our section this week in Galatians!
Galatians 3:10-25...go read it!
I love how this all ties in.  Basically, Paul is saying here that we have never been justified by the works of the law.  The law isn't bad. (vs 21 Certainly not!) but justification all the way back to Abraham, before the law was even around, has always been about HIS PROMISE and HIS WORK.  Verse 25 says "But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor."  I didn't have time this week to listen to a study on this, so this is just me and my brain, but I think the point here is that now we have the Holy Spirit to guide us instead of the law.  And the Spirit is way better than the law ever was.  I left some meaty verse there for you guys to dig into, so let's hear your thoughts.  :)

New Life

Please, pay no attention to the old leaves and weeds...and to the fact that this is an awful iPhone pic.  My iPhone is the nicest camera that I own so that's what ya get.  Plus, even if I had a nice camera, I wouldn't know how to use it, how to get the pictures off of it, or how to upload them.  So iPhone pictures it is!

So I went out into my yard and bent down to take this pic because I feel like it is an image of my soul right now.  I know, maybe a bit deep for a picture of my messy front yard, but follow me.

There has been so much emotional turmoil in my life in the last few years.  So much good.  So much bad.  Hurts and joys and changes and just so crazy much!  Since we moved, I feel like we have spent the last eight months stripping away stuff that we didn't even know was there.  I feel like being out here has forced us to take deep long looks at ourselves.  I know it has for me personally.  I'm no longer surrounded by a whole huge church full of really awesome sweet people who love me just because their love for Jesus is crazy big enough to cover my blunders.  Back in Paris, it was easy to think that I was "good enough."  I was comfortable.  I am SO not saying anything against being in a church full of awesome people.  All you Paris peeps reading this, go hug someone and meet up at Wade Park for me please.  Like now.  Go.  Fellowship is an amazing gift not to be under appreciated.

BUT, with that said, I think that for me personally I wasn't growing like I should have been.  So Jesus, in His grace and mercy, kicked me out of my comfortable nest like a baby eagle who refuses to learn to fly.  And I have been freefalling for a while.  Still am, if I can be honest.  I've never before been so unable to get away from how yucky I am.  All my life, I have struggled with rejection issues.  Yadayadayada, theres a bunch of reasons why, but DUDE it's so there in my sinful nature.  It is the sin which so easily ensnares me, like Hebrews talks about.

But I want to be different.  I've been BEGGING Jesus to free me from the need to feel like people love me or want to be around me.  I've been BEGGING Him to fill me with His Spirit so that I can grow....so that people's lives can be transformed by His mighty power....so that demons are cast out and chains are broken and lives are released from bondage...I've been BEGGING FOR REVIVAL!  And I know it's cliché, but it has to start with me.  SO that's my prayer life right there, a good chunk of it anyway.  And I feel like my front yard.  The tree is leafless...there was snow covering my yard a few days ago in fact...the grass is patchy at best....there's a weed right in the middle of it all...but would you look at those beautiful blue flowers!  My yard is NOT perfect.  It has a long way to go, BUT THE BEAUTIFUL NEW IMPERFECT LIFE RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF IT IS SO ENCOURAGING!  I have so far to go, so many weeds to pull.  DUDE, my tree is still asleep (when I look at it, I imagine myself like Lucy in Prince Caspian looking longingly at the trees and begging them with her heart to WAKE UP).  My spirit is patchy and not very pretty, and I am begging the Holy Spirit to come and breathe life and vibrancy into me....but there is a stirring.  Like those little blue flowers, there is new life beginning.......

I'm so impatient to see this all come together.

Jesus has made me so many promises that I just don't see happening in reality.  But I am clinging to them anyway.  In between times of being a faithless dork and giving up that is.  I want to be a better clinger.  Reading through the book of Ruth this week, it struck me that when Naomi was all get your selves back home girls, I'm a lost cause, that Orpah kissed her and Ruth clung to her.  It's not enough just to have an emotional reaction to the Lord either!  I want to be a clinger!  I want to hold fast to Him, the anchor of my soul.  So pray for me, yeah? That I won't lose heart but in due season keep on going to receive the reward.  (It's my sinful self that makes me lose heart...can I get an amen from anybody out there?)

Which totally ties into our study in Galatians this week.  Go read Galatians 3:1-9 and then lets dig in.

For me, this all ties in because I think I tend to be a bit like the Galatians and try to finish a work that I know began in the Spirit with my flesh.  Yikes, right?  Oh man, verse 3....

"Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit are you now being made perfect by the flesh?"

Dude, I am a FOOL way too much.

But it ties back into verse2..."Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?"

THE SPIRIT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A LEGALISTIC LIFE AND A DISCIPLINED ONE.  At least, that's what I feel like God's been speaking to me as I have gone through this.  There ain't a thing wrong with works.  There's NOT!  Works are in fact good....when they are empowered by the Holy Spirit.  Works alone aren't any good for anything.  But James (gulp, yes I am going there) tells us that faith without the works isn't really any good either.  He says its dead.  Chew on that puppy for a while.  Ouchie.

So, Paul isn't saying not to do anything.  He is saying that we need to get back to the SPIRIT!  And when faith and the Spirit are working together, it's all gonna be good!  That to me is the heart of Galatians...no, the cry of Galatians:
Quit trying to do this in your own power!  Be filled with the Spirit and be moved by Him and let Him rock your socks off!  

Easier said than done, I know.  But really, anything that Jesus asks us to do requires a daily realignment with Him.  I have to ask every single day to be filled with Him.  I need new manna, a new time in the Word, every morning.  I need a new heart and new mercies and new EVERYTHING...every day.

That's really the Christian life right?  Sticking close to Jesus, depending on the Holy Spirit for power, falling on the merciful nature of our Loving Father.  Not a list of accomplishments.  Not a list of things we don't do anymore.  I mean, I may not do drugs anymore, but I've still got a serious issue with SELF that needs overcoming.  I am not complete until I reach heaven.  And that's cool with Jesus.  Is that cool with you?  I am desperately trying to come to the place where I am cool with it.

As I read this morning in Psalm 105, I just stopped in awe of verse 40-41

He opened the rock and water GUSHED OUT; IT RAN IN THE DRY PLACES.

Oh man, THAT is what I need!  I want His Spirit to GUSH out and run into all the dry places in my heart.  I just need to be moved by and full of HIM.

Just Visiting

So yesterday I had one of those "oh, I get it" moments with Jesus.  We are homeschooling our kiddos, but we totally are into some contact with the world and all the good that comes from that so we take her over to the local elementary school for an hour each day.  She joins the second grade class there for their "specials" which is a rotating class of three days each of art, music, and P.E. and it is some awesome stuff.  Occasionally, Seth and I hang out inside the school library while we wait for her.  When we do that, like we did yesterday, we have to sign in and wear a visitors sticker.  Legal and safety reasons of course.  Well, as I was putting Seth's sticker on him, we had a cool conversation.

"Mom, why do I have to wear this?"

"Um, because they said so, baby." (lazy moment there...good thing he didn't let it go at that)

"But WHY mom???"

"Well, because you have to be labeled as different.......because you don't belong to this school.  You have to be marked as different because otherwise it would be easy for a teacher to pull you into her class or send you to the office or for you to just fall in line with a class going down the hall.  That sticker says you're here, but not here to be a part of everything that goes on here. That sticker says you are here for a specific purpose, and then you will be leaving.  You're just a visitor."

And it hit me....ME TOO!  I mean, I know that I am just a sojourner.  Psalm 84....mmmmmm, that's some good stuff right there.  I totally know that my home is in heaven.  But do I know it enough for it to show up like a sticker on my shirt?  Follow my crazy brain if you can...I get fuzzy sometimes.  Have I mentioned that we went dairy and coffee free in my house this week?  Green tea just AIN'T the same baby.  Anyway, so do I actually KNOW, like experientially, that I am a sojourner, a pilgrim?  Is there something that marks me to the world as just a visitor?  Not lame stuff that we put on the outside.  Like some people think certain clothes, or a lack of tattoos, or the presence of tattoos, or whatever thing we pick that decade, will mark us as "christians" right?  But I am talking about something else.  I think of Stephen and Pat Apple.  They are some of the most awesome people Jesus ever made, and they are serving Him over in Israel.  I remember that the first thing Jesus told them to do was not to start up a Bible study right away or any of the normal stuff we think of when we think of planting a church or doing missions.  Jesus told them to walk around and pray.  There's way more to the story, and Pat actually wrote a book that totally rocks, but here's what made me think of it.  As they walked around and just prayed over the city, people began to notice them.  They would walk up to them and say, "You've just got a peace about you.  This is Israel.  We don't have peace.  What do you have???"  And of course the answer was Jesus!  And God has done some amazing works through them, its super awesome.  But do you see what I mean?  It wasn't a certain clothing style or a shirt with enough verses on it (not that those things are bad).....their "visitor sticker" was the peace they had.  The peace that says no matter what happens on this earth, I am headed toward home.

So do I have anything that looks like a "visitors sticker"?  Is there anything about me that plainly states like Hebrews 11 that I am looking for a city whose builder and maker is God, for my homeland?  Is there anything about me to label me a christian, a visitor in this world, besides moral living?  Because there are not-yet-believers out there who are way better at moral living than me.  I want to be marked by HIS visitors sticker.  I think that begins with really really experientially living like this isn't my home.  That's going to take some praying it in for me.  OUCH, right?  Gotta love those lessons that smack you in the face!

Along with that spiritual heads up, we also had our weekly girls Bible study in Galatians.  We went over chapter 2 and there are some cool things in there for sure!  One thing I love about the way that we are doing this is that we each bring something to the table that is different.  Unlike a Bible study where one person talks the whole time (that's great, don't get me wrong) I love this setting where we are just all hearing different cool stuff and sharing our hearts and questions with each other.

So that being said I have a question for YOU!

Here's the background to my question....we know the deal with this book right?  Paul was writing to these believers because the Judaizers (how DO you spell that?) had come in and said that Paul was probably well intentioned but that since he wasn't getting the story first hand like the original apostles, he had gotten it messed up a bit.  Jesus is great to start with but now keep the law.  And Paul is ticked.  He is one unhappy camper!  Because to say that you now need the law to STAY saved is a total affront to what Jesus did on the cross.  I have to agree with that for sure.  That wouldnt really be good news right?  Like yay Jesus died for you and now heres a hunk of laws for you to follow.  YIKES!  The problem is, I mess up every single day SO MANY TIMES.  I can't even make breakfast without breaking the law.  Especially when I make bacon! ha! Sorry, sorry.  This really is a serious thing for sure.  I am a loser.  I can't keep the law for sure.  But theres a huge push out there right now in some circles that says grace grace grace and then lives licentiously.  Which I also totally know isn't the point.  We can't be made right with God by keeping the law, but the Bible is super clear that we are to love AND OBEY His commands.

So here's my question to you (I totally want to hear your heart on this!)

What law is Paul talking about?

I heard a great Pastor say that the difficulty here is that when Paul says "law" here, he is talking about the ceremonial law that had at its intent the purpose of showing you that you could not be good enough to earn Gods favor.  But that is different from God's moral law.  So paul is saying that you should not ever do anything because you want to earn your way into God's heart, BUT THAT DOESNT MEAN YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO DO ANYTHING.  Dude, Jesus Himself all over the place lays out ways for holy living and says that you'll be blessed as you keep His commandments.  It's not an old testament concept that we're talking about here.  I really want to get this.  It's pretty important, right?

Man, that is so not any of what I sat down to write about!  Well, in a way, I guess it is.  I wanted to talk about verse 11...Paul was SO UPSET that it was worth bringing it up.  Even if it might hurt relationships with people that he loved.  Thinking about that got me off on this tangent I guess.  But really, thats the crux of Galatians for me.  The law here needs to be defined clearly.  Give me your thoughts okay?

Oh and I totally left verse 20 out there....somebody dig into that okay?

Okay it's time to serve some hot cranberry cider (remember no dairy around here anymore) to some really cold kids who've been playing in the snow for the last hour or so.  These kids bless my heart!  Anybody else out there have snow on May 1st?