The Blog

“the voice of one crying out in suburbia…”: An honest discussion on social justice

Alan Knox is back at it, but I haven’t had a chance to catch up on his blog.  I’m sure there’s some good stuff in his Ethiopia reports.

I don’t have a new song selection this week.  I’m still stuck on last week’s.

At our Wednesday bible meeting we talked more about the law, and how the death and resurrection of Christ released us from the requirements of the law.  We read from Galatians 2:15-21, which discusses justification by faith in Christ.  The key line for me is verse 18:  “For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor.”  To me this speaks to re-establishing the rule of the law in our lives, the result of which is transgression.  Galatians 5:2-3 goes on to say that if we try to keep one part of the law, we are responsible for keeping the whole thing.  Of course in that case, we are doomed to fail.  The other verse that fascinates me now, that I never previously understood, is Galatians 3:19-20, with the focus being verse 20.  This passage discusses the use of a mediator, which of course would imply two parties.  It goes on to say, however, that God is one.  I never understood this until my wife read from the study notes in her bible.  What I now see is that the mediator was mediating between God and Man.  However, since Christ is both God and man, the success of the mediation is guaranteed because He is both sides of the mediation!  The overall point of Galatians 3 is to explain why the law was given, namely to clearly show us our need for Christ.

Knowing, then, the importance of walking in grace through faith, not only for justification but also for sanctification, we can further understand Romans 8, where it talks about walking in the spirit vs. walking in the flesh.

5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Romans 8:5-11

In this passage, walking in the flesh could mean living carnally, but could also entail trying to live a righteous life by our own power, or taking the law back on ourselves.  In my own walk there are several issues the Lord has been dealing with me on.  One issue is getting up earlier in the morning.  Now, I love to sleep in.  I absolute love to sleep period.  I love just to lay in my bed.  It holds me captive in the mornings!  Trying to get myself up early to read the bible, pray or do charts at the clinic is like pulling teeth.  Once up I am fine, but getting up is a bear!  Since being convicted of this I have largely tried to attack this on my own strength.  Even after reading the above passage, and being instructed to “by the spirit put to death the deeds of the body” I still found myself trying in my own power.  I now see that, to overcome this issue I have to approach it spiritually, for real.  This involves prayer, speaking forth what He has already made me to be, so that what is already true in eternity becomes truth in this temporal realm, and may also include fasting or other measures.  The key is to not conquer this issue by the force of my will-power, as success gained by my strength is really failure.

I would love to hear others comments on what it means to you to “by the spirit put to death the deeds of the body”.  What I mean is, if you were me, and the Lord identified an issue that needed changed in your life, how would you approach this, in the Spirit?