Defending the Message

Galatians 1: 11-24

This was a long passage detailing Paul's journey and his intentions.  Take aways from this:

We should never feel the need to hide our past sins because they are in fact what make our salvation by grace so amazing.

I do believe this, but this is just hard for me.  I don't want to admit all of my sins to others.  I guess I am not really hiding them, trying to go through life thinking that I had never sinned and I am better than others, but I don't think I want to broadcast all the bad things I have done.  I am growing as a Christian because I know I have sinned and I have asked God's forgiveness for those.  And I continue to sin each and every day.  I don't feel the need to tell everyone about those sins though.


We would be wiser to simply live our new beliefs patiently and let others witness for themselves the changes in us.

Often in the devotions that Rhonda and I have shared over the last 18 months we have been called to witness to others, to share our faith, to proclaim our beliefs.  We both feel that this is hard to do and that while we are not ashamed of our faith nor would we ever deny our faith, we just don't feel comfortable sharing it with others when we aren't sure how our words would be received.  This passage and Joyce's words of explanation made me feel so much better about my feelings about this.  I can do this...although it is still hard....to live my Christian belief and faith daily.  Then I can lead or share by example.


It is usually best to make sure the timing of our sharing is right.  Without patience, we usually choose our own timing and don't get good results.  This is true not only in our witnessing but in many other areas of life as well. 

No kidding!  And I think today's society has caused the 'immediate gratification' to be more prominent, especially in our young people.  Credit cards allow us to 'buy now, pay later' which allows us to buy impulsively because we can always pay for it later on.  What happened to saving for a new car or a down payment for a house?  Why does it always have to be now?  I struggle with  eating --- instead of waiting for a meal, I will grab a cheese stick or a cookie.  Now there is a tub of brownie bites on the counter and those are so easy to just open and pop one in my mouth.  How many points are in a brownie bite?  Too many to justify eating several a day, that's for sure!


New section coming up!