(Galatians 5:2-4. MSG) The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ's hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law. I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you call out of grace.
God doesn't care whether I care about being religious; following a set of rules. But if I don't show love with faith, I will kena from God.
I am quite feeling-less at times. I don't think I need to feel, to offer help. I see the need, I provide the help. Of course, it is always good to empathize with people, but I don't do it all the time. So what's wrong with that? Some people feel with you but gives bullshit help.
Some people that I will not try too hard to help
- Those who think that they can rough it out on their own ("Good. You need help then ask.")
- Those whom I have advised but it falls on deaf ears (I hate to tell you "I told you so.")
- Those who are stubborn ("Saying it once is enough. No point repeating.")
- Strangers. Those people whom I do not know.
(Galatians 5:12) Why don't these agitators, obsessive as they are about circumcision, go all the way and castrate themselves.
Funny to the max! The author is so pissed off.
What are some rules in our lives that we are so hard up about which don't actually matter. Sometimes, we are so particular about certain preference which makes no change to anyone's lives. We got to rethink why we put efforts in areas that don't matter.
God's perspective of freedom
Our freedom can destroy freedom.
Freedom grows are we serve one another in love.
Act of true freedom - Love others as you love yourself.
- What does these mean? (At the point of reading verses 13-14, I have no idea what Paul is trying to say. Then I realized the explanation can be found in verse 15. I did not come up with the answers myself.)
Our freedom can cause us to choose to do unwise things that make us enemies which can remove the freedom we have OR cause us to be locked us in jail, literally removing the freedom.
Freedom grows as we make more friends than enemy. I can make more friends when I take care of others as I would meet my own needs. If I care about others as much as I care about myself, I will be a very loving person.
(Galatians 5:16-18) My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God's Spirit. Then you won't feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don't you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?
(Galatians 5:19-21. NIV = MSG)
Sexual immorality = Repetitive, loveless, cheap sex
Impurity = A stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage
Debauchery = Frenzied and joyless grab of happiness
Idolatry and witchcraft = trinket gods, magic show religion
Hatred = An impotence to love or be loved
Discord= Divided homes and divided lives
Jealousy = Cutthroat competition
Fits of rage = A brutal temper
Selfish ambition = Small-minded and lopsided pursuits
Dissensions = The vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival
Factions = Paranoid lonliness
Envy = All-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants
Drunkenness = Uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions
Orgies = Ugly parodies of community
I think that people (me) should choose to live a life not because of being threatened but rather because I want to enjoy the best that God has for me.
(Galatians 5:26 NIV & MSG) Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
That means that we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.
