Morning Musings-What Counts?

            

      Morning Musings with the boys at breakfast...



What counts?  Is it being circumcised or remaining uncircumcised?  Is it still being a Jew or Greek?  Being male or female?  How about being a slave or free?  Or Chinese or some other race?  What counts?

Galatians 6:11-18 gives you a concrete answer.  "What counts is being a new creation" in Christ.  We're ONE in Christ now, no matter which race you are from and no matter your situation in life.  We are of the Christian race, if you want to put it that way.  As such we're to walk in step with the Holy Spirit of God and be led by Him through the direction of God's Word in our lives.

Paul has a sense of humor.  Since you Galatians want to be in bondage to rules, he says in verse 16, "follow this rule"..."walk and be led by the Holy Spirit".  This is the law of freedom.  It was a burden for the Jews to follow all their laws.  An impossible way to try to live by.  Paul would know because he was the Pharisee's Pharisee and had lived an impeccable life of living to the exact measure,  as much as possible, to the micro letter of the Jewish laws.  How he must have felt that burden roll off his shoulders upon his conversion and entry into God's family through becoming a "new creation in Christ where he could be led by the Spirit".  

So Paul puzzles, "why, oh why would you want to live like that again!!???"  "Come on, people!!" "Get in step with the Spirit".  "Don't let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery" (Gal 5:1)

Outward things such as whether or not a person is circumcised, etc, is working on a person from the outside in and doesn't work so well.  God works from the inside of a person, with a change of heart to become a new creation, to the outside.  Paul said if the Galatians wanted to be circumcised to show they were a new creation, then let it be that circumcision of the heart!  Peace and mercy will be upon all who do--even to the people of Israel of God.  God gives a new heart and a new mindset.

A quotation from a book I've read last year (2015) written by Steve Cioccolanti, entitled From Buddha to Jesus, says,

".. the teaching of morals will slowly and gradually deteriorate.  Just as the quality of food deteriorates little by little, year by year, and people do not notice, so too will they not notice when the teaching of truth deteriorates."  

(This is actually quoted by the author who got the quotation from Buddha's prophecy as revealed to Pra-Maha-Gasapa Tayra. I can't recall who that was.  Can do your own research into this.)

The point is, it can be seen that working from the outside-in of a person doesn't bring true and lasting change.  Only with the help of the Holy Spirit does that type of change occur and is made possible as God is working from the inside to the outside of our souls, purifying our thoughts and our hearts; transforming a person into a new creation in Christ.


                                                                 ~ERC  2016~