The word of God is the spring of life. We drink it now. Guess what? We immediately get thirsty again. We drink it. We get even thirstier. Why? It is the spring of life! It is life and it gives us life too!

(Don’t let the devil deceive you to be addicted to porn, alcohol, drug, prescription drugs and all. You are created to be addicted to this spring of life, the word of God, only!)

God after He created Adam, the Bible says,

“Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7NASB

Man’s body came from dust but his soul came from God Himself. God “breathed into his nostrils.” This is what gives life, the breath of God.

And Paul writes:

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17ESV

Praise God!

Yes, the word of God is “breathed out by God.” As we read, study and meditate the word of God, we find life and life abundantly.

You have no idea how I am falling in love with the Book Galatians. I’m telling you! The whole week, I’ve been studying Galatians and guess what? Our Bible study for this month picked the Book of Galatians. Don’t think that I was involved in the decision making. Our Bible study is led by a couple and when they sent us email saying that we would study Galatians, I said to myself, “Uh-oh!”

So, I hope and I pray you won’t be tired to me talking/writing about Galatians but please my friends study this book. It is a life-giving book because it is “breathed out by God.”

If you haven’t read/watch my last week post, please click this link and read/watch it: http://appealforpurity.org/2022/10/07/i-implore-you/

Paul is totally crying and pleading with the Galatian Christians because they quickly abandoned the Gospel, the Good News, Paul preached to them.

I mean, I leave all the details to you to study later but Paul preached the Gospel he received from God the Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. When Paul left to another city, other men came to the Galatian Churches began to preach something that was not at all a “Good News.”

What does the Good News say?

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” 1 Corinthians 15:3-4ESV

Paul preached this Gospel and taught the Galatian Christians how God saved them from their sins and from this evil world by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross on their behalf. Not only Jesus died for their sins but He was buried and after three days, Jesus rose from the dead to be the only Savior of man. He told them they could only be saved by receiving this Savior by faith as their Savior and Lord.

Then these “other men”, probably claiming that they were with Jesus while Jesus was on earth – which can be true, came to Galatian Churches and said to the people of God something like: “Yes, we are here also like Paul to preach Gospel but we are Jews and the promise of God was given to us, Jews, to nobody else. So, the Savior came to the Jews only. So, if you want to follow Jesus Christ, first get circumcised and put yourself under the Law and be a Jew first. Then you can be a born again Christian.”

This is a very dangerous twist to the Gospel. This is totally rejecting the Free Gift of God!

I think these people probably felt like they had to do something about the people of God, Jews, the Israelites, to show to the rest of the world their uniqueness from other nations. The Gospel Paul was preaching was to every human being, not only to Jews. Actually Paul was specifically called to preach the Gospel to gentiles, non-Jews. Paul himself was a Jew, a Pharisee and they didn’t really like what Paul was saying. His message gave them a bad taste in their mouth. So, they thought they needed to add something to Paul’s message.

Guess what? Paul was not just angry and annoyed. He was furious! He is saying, there is only One Gospel and that Gospel is the one I am preaching. Trust me when I say this because I receive it from God Himself, Jesus Christ. This is the only Gospel that can save man. No other Gospel. A person has to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved. Jesus Christ came from God, born of the Virgin Mary, got crucified for the crime He didn’t commit but on your behalf and He was buried. Then as Scripture says, this Jesus rose from the dead. This is the Only Savior there is. God gave Jesus so that anyone who receives and believes in Him would live forever! No added message to this!

This is it! This is the Gospel!

Why does the Gospel tend to annoy people or kind of encourage them to add something to it?

Because Gospel says, all men are dead in sin through Adam and they all are destined to go to hell. Without Christ, everybody is dead! The Gospel rubs man’s pride the wrong way. It pretty much says, you are lost unless you find this Savior. I mean, think about it! With our tendency to take pride in what we do and what we can accomplish, this comes and pierces our pride in the center. Gospel only talks about Christ, nobody else!

With all the social media generation, we all want to promote “self,” not Someone who died 2000 years ago. But since His Name has some kind of magic and power, everybody wants to use the Name but preaching him alone is totally “unthinkable” to man, the seed of Adam.

And Paul is saying, the Gospel is the only Good News there is in this and Gospel is all about Christ. It is not about anybody, and it is not about anybody being successful in life, being healed and be rich and famous. And Jesus “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age” Galatians 1:4ESV

To deliver us from “the present evil age” or this dark world. This does not mean God wants us to live in an obscurity or somewhere alone. No! Jesus died for our sins so we live in this world not according to the pattern of this world but according to a different pattern, different thinking and reasoning we get from the word of God. Why? This is the only way we can glorify the One who died for us.

Just before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed for us saying this to His Father:

“I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” John 17:15-17ESV

“Sanctify them” in what? In the truth! What is truth? Christ Himself. It is the word of God! (John 1:1, John 14:6, John 17:17)

So, as we read, study and meditate the word of God, God “sanctifies” us, means, God “sets us apart,” from this evil world by our thinking, understanding and reasoning so that our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be glorified in and through us in this dark world by the way we live. That is why Paul says,

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:2ESV

When our mind gets renewed on a daily basis by the word of God, gets sanctified, our world view will be like Scriptures. We see everything, life, death, work, marriage, man, woman, everything we view as the word of God views and our lifestyle cannot be the same as the people of this world.

Let me leave the rest of the chapter, Galatians 1, to your own personal study. I don’t think I will be able to finish everything that needs to be said from Galatians 1 here. But I trust you to study the chapter and the whole book seriously using commentaries from respected fathers of faith, past and present, like John Piper, J.I. Packer, Charles Spurgeon, John Stott and more. ///