March 2 - Galatians 1:6-10

March 2 – Galatians 1:6-10

No Other Gospel
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!  Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Those poor Galatians … it obviously hadn’t taken them long to move away from God.  He was the one who had called them to live in the grace of Christ, but they were quickly and easily distracted by false teachers and a false gospel. 

They were easily confused by all of the new information coming at them and just allowed these false teachers to enamor them with their stories.

I think about the old-time snake oil salesmen.  We laugh at the naiveté of people who believed in their tales of wondrous healings and life-changing ointments, but we still run into those things today.  We want life to be easy and have quick responses to our needs.  We buy diet pills and rub oil on balding scalps while hoping and praying for an easy fix.

We want the same thing to happen in our lives.  I heard an advertisement on the radio today for hypnosis that would stop someone’s addiction to cigarettes in just one session. 

Christians are just as susceptible. When my father left a church, we kept hearing from people that the new pastor wasn’t ‘feeding’ them … they just weren’t being ‘fed’ by his messages.  Dad was so distraught.  He finally told them that they dishonored his ministry there – he had hoped that they learned to feed themselves.  It wasn’t about that – it was about the easy Sunday morning fixes that they wanted.  They wanted him to spoon-feed the gospel to them week after week rather than live their lives throughout the week according to the Gospel that they knew and the same Gospel that they could read and share.

We have been given the Gospel of Jesus Christ … God calls us to live in His grace.  Do it!