Luke 2:21-24  :

When eight days were fulfilled for the circumcision of the child, his name was called Jesus, which was given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

When the days of their purification according to the law of Moses were fulfilled, they brought him up to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”), and to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, “A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.”

I am very concerned that people today fail to recognize that Jesus is still a Jew. Jesus never said anything about the end of the Jewish religion except that the law was to be "fulfilled." This passage tells us that Jesus was raised very carefully as a Jew, meeting all of the requirements in childhood for a first born son.

Jesus is still a Jew today. This means that mistreating the Jews is mistreating Jesus' own people and respecting the Jews shows respect for Jesus' people. I believe that how we treat the Jews today tells us something about what we think about Jesus.

It's interesting that the phrase, "What would Jesus do?" or "WWJD" became so popular in the recent past. I am sure that Jesus would treat His own people with respect. I know that He is willing to discipline His people for doing wrong, but that is His own business, not ours. I believe that that the only thing to do now is to show them the love that Jesus has for them, not forgetting that Jesus loves the Gentiles as well and because of this we, as believers love the Gentiles too.  I see no indication in the Bible that Jesus has given up on His own people in any way.  He just added Gentiles into the fold and I am happy about that.

It is obvious that the law has been fulfilled in Christ, however, because we are not expected to do the things that Joseph and Mary had to do before Jesus completed His work on the cross. We don't circumcise children on the eighth day or offer "A pair of turtledoves" for our children unto God anymore. Jesus caused us to die to the law by His death. The law didn't go away but we did.

Some Christians struggle with this concept and think that the legal requirements continue to apply to Christians. The problem with this is that if we already died in Christ, it fulfills the law's requirements that sinners die. You wouldn't want to live by God's law because there is no justice for sin except the death of the sinner and God doesn't fail to be just. That means that to live now is like deciding to pay for your own sin which isn't a good idea. This is not an accurate picture, however, because, at this point, your sin has already been paid for. Sin today is to fail to believe this fact which holds a much worse penalty. If we don't accept our payment, then Hell is a necessary consequence because the love of God and His Son Jesus were rejected leaving no other way by to eternally separate the sinner from God.

Jesus is still a Jew, but things have changed for both Jews and Gentiles as a result of what Jesus did to pay for the sin of mankind.  It is now our choice to believe or not.

Luke 1:28-30  :

Having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, you highly favored one! The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women!” But when she saw him, she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered what kind of salutation this might be. The angel said to her, “Don’t be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

It is interesting that when the angel appeared to Mary she didn't think to herself, "of course, God sent His angel to recognize my good works and to give me special favor." Instead, she "considered what kind of salutation this might be." I think that Mary was aware that she was a sinner just like everyone else. How could it be that she could have found favor with God?

I think that those who have favor with God realize that it isn't because of what they have done. Those who have favor with God know that it is because of God and not because of themselves. There is, however, a thing that God gives us the power to do that, when we do it, it pleases Him. Let's look at Abraham:

Genesis 15:1-7  :

After these things the word of Yahweh came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”

Abram said, “Lord Yahweh, what will you give me, since I go childless, and he who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” Abram said, “Behold, to me you have given no seed: and, behold, one born in my house is my heir.”

Behold, the word of Yahweh came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir, but he who will come out of your own body will be your heir.” Yahweh brought him outside, and said, “Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” He said to Abram, “So shall your seed be.” He believed in Yahweh; and he reckoned it to him for righteousness.

Abram (later to be named Abraham) had no children much like Zacharias, but when God told him that he would someday have children too numerous to count, Abraham believed. Notice that God made him righteous even though Abraham wasn't righteous because of his good works. God clearly favors someone who believes what He says. This is such an important point that it is repeated three times in the New Testament:

Romans 4:3  :

For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”

Galatians 3:6  :

Even as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.”

The third time that this is repeated is especially interesting for our discussion today. Listen to this:

James 2:19-24  :

You believe that God is one. You do well. The demons also believe, and shudder. But do you want to know, vain man, that faith apart from works is dead? Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works, in that he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? You see that faith worked with his works, and by works faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness”;* and he was called the friend of God. You see then that by works, a man is justified, and not only by faith.

An interesting thing that I want to highlight is the order of events. Notice that in the first passage, Abraham heard that he would have many children and believed. Right at that point, God favored him and gave him righteousness. God favored the faith right away, but outwardly, the evidence of that faith had not been shown outwardly. That is what we see next in the James passage. Later, Abraham did have a Son and God told him to kill him as a sacrifice. This was the outward evidence of Abraham's faith as He had to believe that God would somehow keep His promise. Fortunately, the New Testament tells us what Abraham was thinking at that point:

Hebrews 11:17-19  :

By faith, Abraham, being tested, offered up Isaac. Yes, he who had gladly received the promises was offering up his one and only son; even he to whom it was said, “In Isaac will your seed be called”;* concluding that God is able to raise up even from the dead. Figuratively speaking, he also did receive him back from the dead.

Abraham believed that after sacrificing his son, that God would raise him from the dead in order to fulfill His promise.

The point I am making is that the outward evidence of Abraham's favor with God came after the favor. God favored first and then the evidence came. That is what we will read here with Mary. God has already found favor with Mary, but as we read on we will find out more about the faith of Mary. Feel free to read on in your Bible.

Galatians 6:9  :

Let us not be weary in doing good, for we will reap in due season, if we don’t give up.

I would like to consider this verse in the context of some other verses as well. Here's what Paul tells the Romans:

Romans 11:17-23  :

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them, and became partaker with them of the root and of the richness of the olive tree; don’t boast over the branches. But if you boast, it is not you who support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, "Branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in." True; by their unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by your faith. Don’t be conceited, but fear; for if God didn’t spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. See then the goodness and severity of God. Toward those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness; otherwise you also will be cut off. They also, if they don’t continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.

When we believe, we need to keep believing. Paul was troubled because the Galatians were leaving the true teaching of the Gospel to follow something else that wasn't just the Gospel. If you really believe in the truth, you will be saved. If you stop believing you cannot be saved. I am not saying that you can lose your salvation by doing something wrong. I am saying that you lose your salvation when it becomes evident that you don't really believe. You can't be saved without believing in Jesus.

Have you ever noticed that it is easy to get tired of something when you forget why you are doing it? Faith is a rational process. You have to actually believe something to be true in your mind. When you really believe in something you do things that are consistent with those beliefs. Paul doesn't want us to stop doing good. That is a sign we aren't believing in the truth that He keeps talking about.  Notice how Paul says don't get tired, remember we will reap... that's a rational faith and one we desperately need to remember today.

I want to make it clear that Paul isn't saying that you need to keep trying to follow God's laws so that you can be saved. We know, as we have been studying, that the context of this book is that he is talking about sowing and reaping. When we sow to the Spirit we do good. When we sow to the flesh, we are not doing good and the sowing comes down to belief in the Gospel, that we must listen to God's word and believe so that the Holy Spirit can do His work in us, making us able to do good.

Notice in the Romans passage that being conceited is a problem again. This is evidence of self-reliance. It's as if those who are conceited believe that somehow they deserve God's blessing. The fact is none of us do. The way to not get tired of doing good is to remain in the faith of God's word, realizing that it is God working in us to do what is right.

Also notice that if someone starts believing after having disbelieved, they still have a chance to be saved. We should not give up on people but always hope that they will someday believe as long as they are still alive.

When we believe in something we cannot see, it is called "hope" in the Bible. We have a hope that someday we will be with Jesus forever and that we will no longer be troubled by our flesh, the world's system and Satan. We will reap a harvest someday if we continue in faith. Let's not forget this. Let's hold on to the Bible and continue to believe no matter what the world around us tries to get us to think.

Galatians 5:22-23  :

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

One of the amazing things about the Law of Moses is that it doesn't disallow anything in this list. I have found many human systems that interfere with this list but God was able to make a perfect law that defines behavior that promotes these things. In a society that is aware of spiritual things, letter-of-the-law can give way to spirit-of-the-law when it is obvious that the heart was acting out of love, kindness or goodness. What the law should be wanting are the things in this list and if that isn't what is wanted, then there is corruption among those who are promoting the law.

As believers, we really want to do these things. Isn't it interesting that Paul doesn't give detailed instructions about how to do each one of them? I believe that this is because it isn't our job to produce these things. These things are the produce of the Holy Spirit even though they grow in us.

These things, unlike the works of the flesh, are very uncommon among people in the world, even though they are often talked, written, and sung about. Everyone knows that "all you need is love" but no one is able to do it. The ability to do these things stands out and that is what God makes possible in those who believe in Him. What a great thing to be a part of a community of those who produce the fruit of the Spirit. That is one of the greatest things about belonging to the Church.

If we trust in God's word and allow God's Holy Spirit to work in us we can expect to produce these qualities.

Notice that "self-control" is in the list. The Holy Spirit really doesn't "take the wheel." He gives you the ability to steer in the right direction. Believing this fact will help you stay away from many misunderstandings about the walking in the Spirit. Even though we drive by His power, we can forget and when we do, we start to steer in the wrong directions. God must be the one who produces this fruit as long as we remain in our flesh.

Galatians 5:18  :

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

The law is not required when you are being led by the Spirit. If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. Why do you need a law to tell you what you already want to do? What would the law be keeping you from? There are many other reasons why a Christian who is being led by the Spirit is not under the law.

As I mentioned before, if you died with Christ already, the price has been paid for the penalty for breaking the law. In that sense you are already dead to the law. Because the penalty has been paid, the law doesn't have any force.

I don't believe that this is saying that we should not be aware of what is right and wrong. The Bible says that the law can teach us things about what God says are good and bad. It isn't that we don't have rules in our lives. The 10 Commandments are good rules, but we are not gaining ground with God by doing them. Basically, we don't do them for the same reason that those who have not already been blessed by God would do them and not all of them still apply. The 10 Commandments were written as a way to teach follows how to get blessed. In that sense they are directed to a different audience. We should be aware of this when we study that part of the Bible and not directly apply it as if God intended us to be there taking it to heart like those who were living at that time. We follow the rules of our Father's house because we are already blessed to be His Children! We are not under the law! But, if we don't follow the rules of our Father's house, what does that say about our faith in the fact that we are His children? (See 1 John)

Many of you may have recently made new year's resolutions. I'm not saying it's bad to have goals. I am saying that you attempt to reach your goals by the power of your own flesh, you will probably fail. That includes new year's resolutions. I don't have to tell you about how common it is that people fail to keep their resolutions because you probably already are well aware.

If you attempt to keep your new year's resolutions by having faith in God's word and allowing His Spirit to help you keep them, if your resolution is not one that is ignorant of God's word or fleshly to start out with, you will be able to keep it as you trust in God. In that case you are not under the law but are being led by the Spirit.

I suggest that you make a new life resolution to walk by the Spirit from this time on by reading and hearing God's word and believing what it says every moment of every day.

Galatians 5:16  :

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won’t fulfill the lust of the flesh.

This is a critical verse for Christians that I believe is often not given an appropriate amount of focus. The way to actually overcome sin and win the war against your body's lust is defined right here in this verse.

It is important to understand these words so I want to make sure that you understand what is meant by "walk by the Spirit." This was something that I tried to understand for many years and only recently came to a better understanding. First of all, "walk by the Spirit" does not mean that you actually "go walking next to the Spirit." Sure, we should be close to the Spirit but this is different. This actually means that we should be "by the Spirit's power, walking." The big difference is that you are not to be the driving force or the power behind your walk. When you think that you are walking by the Spirit, you have probably missed the point.

The point here is that it is not you providing the power to do the walking. Have you wondered why you have not been able to overcome sin in your life? It could be because you are trying to do the walking yourself! See how important know the way to live the Christian life is?

Sure we need to know what things a Christian should do, but it is also very important for us to know how to actually have the ability to do those things. We need both parts.

It is good to understand that "Spirit" doesn't mean your own spirit. Notice the capitalization there. Your spirit doesn't get capitalized. Here the Spirit is referring to God Himself.

Also, it is important to understand how to walk by the Spirit. This one of my biggest difficulties. I had heard it said that walking by the Spirit is to completely rely on Him and not on myself. Now, I think that this is correct, but I didn't understand how to "completely rely" on the Spirit either. Then I was reminded of a verse we read back in chapter 3 of Galatians:

Galatians 3:2  :

I just want to learn this from you. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith?

Now it could be argued here that Paul is talking about Salvation. I would agree. I think he is talking about Salvation. But notice, that you receive the Spirit by "hearing of faith." To make sure that we don't wonder if this is only about Salvation it says this too:

Galatians 3:5  :

He therefore who supplies the Spirit to you, and works miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith?

Now we're talking. This is clearly representing the people in the Church by talking about a "supply" of the Spirit to us and doing miracles, and, believe me, overcoming our flesh is a miracle; one that this world really needs.

Notice that here, again, it says, "by hearing of faith." One might ask "hearing of what?" (Isn't interesting how much questioning and confusion surrounds this extremely important topic?) Well, we know that the hearing of the Gospel is what brought us to believe and brought the Spirit's presence to us. The Gospel was written down for us and is now in the Bible. The Bible also contains truth about who we are and what we were meant to do as Christians. I believe that by reading, or hearing the Bible, and believing it, the Holy Spirit is able to then empower us and cause us to overcome our flesh. I want to leave you with one other verse about this:

Romans 10:17  :

So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

So, there is the way to victory. It isn't by you at all but by the word of God and by His Spirit that lives in you and is activated by faith in God's word. You are doing the right thing to study His word now and there is so much more to learn!  You don't have to read this blog to learn what God says in the Bible for us. You can read his word yourself and go to a Bible-believing church.  Just getting together with other believers is helpful in keeping our focus on the word of God.

Galatians 5:15  :

But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you don’t consume one another.

Paul observed that the Galatians had begun arguing with each other. Perhaps they were even arguing violently.

A couple of days ago, I mentioned that some people doubt the effectiveness of the Gospel of grace because they doubt it will provide the structure to control the base desires of humanity. Here we read that it is the Law that clearly fails.

Have you ever noticed that when you make a set of rules that define a system of merit that something called "competition" begins to become more common? Now God was clearly defining a legal system that defined merit before God, but somehow, humankind always seems to figure out a way to make God's rules into a system of comparison between humans.

I have a theory about how this works. I think that because it becomes clear to us that God's law is unattainable, we start shifting our focusing to something more positive by comparing ourselves to other people. We can feel better about our sin before God if we know that, at least, we are doing better than our neighbor.

You can see how this would quite easily produce arguments. Whenever we have pride in our own performance and start to compare our performance with those whose performance appears to be lower than ours, we can easily show our pride. If someone else disagrees with our assesment of merit it would be easy for that person to mention it. When they do it is quite natural to defend our merit. It all seems quite harmless. The fact is, this kind of arguing rips people apart. This is the kind of thing that destroys whole churches.

I think that Paul is mocking the Galatians performance under their "law gospel." It just doesn't work and anyone looking from the outside can easily see it.

In striking contrast to this is what Jesus actually expects. He asked us to love our neighbor as we talked about yesterday. See the problem?

Galatians 5:14  :

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The Law is the outward representation of what love does to its neighbor. The Old Testament law is a set of rules that, when you follow them, show what love would act like.

The law is an amazing thing that obviously had to come from someone who was not human. Every law that humans make is either unnecessarily complicated, or lacking. It is often bound to cultural absurdities as well. God's law He gave through Moses is so amazing in that it defines a relatively simple system that, if it could be followed, would actually make life on earth an amazing and wonderful thing.

The problem with mankind is that we just don't have love. Listen to how John talks about it:

1 John 4:7-11  :

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God, and knows God. He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love. By this God’s love was revealed in us, that God has sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us.

Do you see how this works? Jesus fulfills the law in us as it says "If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us." The way that we can love God and love each other is by the presence of Jesus in us living it out through us. Sure we are doing the loving also, but it is the life of Jesus that makes it possible in us. If we didn't need the life of Jesus to love each other, then the Law would have been good enough.

The law wasn't good enough to produce the fulfillment of it in us. That's what the Messiah came for. He paid the price for our sin and then became our life as we have faith in that life; as we recognize that our old life was crucified with Jesus thousands of years ago.

Galatians 5:13  :

For you, brothers, were called for freedom. Only don’t use your freedom for gain to the flesh, but through love be servants to one another.

One of the things many religious people fear about the Gospel of grace is that people will sin because there aren't any rules to stop them. Besides the fact that rules never stopped anyone sinning before, and that rules never were kept well enough by people to save them anyway, it is also not likely that people under grace will be more likely to sin.

We were called to be free. That means that we get to choose what we want to do. We can choose to live for our flesh. I know from experience that this is a miserable existence for a Christian and we are told in the Bible that in the end, we will be ashamed before God when we see Jesus face-to-face if we do live for selfishness here.

Paul makes it clear that using freedom for selfish purposes is not what Christianity is suggesting. In fact, it is very clear that we are to use our freedom to make ourselves servants! Paul says in other places that you end up being a servant one way or another. If you choose to live for your body, then your body becomes your master. If you choose to obey Jesus and live for your brothers and sisters, you become a servant of Jesus. Most of us know from experience that the body does not make a good master. It tends toward self-destruction and harm toward others because of selfishness.

One important thing to recognize here is that we know when we hear it that Paul is not speaking a vain thing. When Paul tells us as believers to become servants of love to each other, we realize that it is something that we would really like to do. Paul knows that true Christians will really want this. Paul simply has to encourage and remind us. That is freedom. It is freedom when we are finally able to do the good that we really want to do, even if it goes against our selfishness. Paul has more about how it is even possible for us as free people to overcome our selfish desires.

Galatians 5:5-6  :

For we, through the Spirit, by faith wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision amounts to anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love.

God recognizes us as righteous in Jesus today, but we still wait for the final hope of righteousness to take place. It should be obvious to us that we still sin even as Christians. Our righteousness, although final in God's eyes, has yet to be realized. That is why some of our salvation is still a hope. Until the day that we see Jesus again, we have this flesh to contend with and following the law of Moses or any other legal system for that matter, will not help us overcome this problem. Notice that Paul mentions that both Jewish law and non-Jewish effort doesn't amount to anything in the light of what Jesus has done.

Paul tells us here that what does work is "faith working through love." Because we still have these old sinful bodies and minds, we need some way to overcome our desire to do what is wrong. God recognizes our salvation in Christ, so should we. We need to see that our bodies are dead in Christ's death and see that our lives are now alive in Him to do only good. That is all that is left for us to do now, but we must have faith in this fact and in all that God says about us in the Bible. It is good for us to keep our minds centered on the truth from the Bible and allow the Holy Spirit the freedom to cause us to overcome our sinful desires by the good desires that He replaces them with.

Paul goes into this subject in more detail later. Please read ahead in Galatians to learn more. You will also find more discussion in Romans.