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Pastor Lud Golz
Pastor Lud Golz

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  Home | Transcript Archive | November | November 15, 2013

Friday, November 15, 2013

 Did you think about Paul’s rhetorical question found in Galatians 3:3 as I suggested in our last visit: “Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?” If you have been trying to live the Christian life by your own self determination and discipline do you realize how foolish that is?  

In Galatians 5:1 Paul describes salvation as freedom: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” 
 
An obvious question arising in many minds is this: Am I then free to do whatever I want? Implicit in this question is another question; Is “whatever I want” the same after I am in Christ as before my salvation? The answer is both “yes” and “no.” 
 
If you are not living “by faith in the Son of God,” or as Paul put it, living “by the Spirit,” you will find your sinful nature “desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want” (Galatians 5:17). You’ll experience spiritual ambivalence. 
 
In this condition you’ll tend to yield to what was familiar in your past. This is when you need to believe what Paul declares in Galatians 5:24-25: “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” 
 
So when you are tempted, affirm by faith, “I belong to Christ Jesus.” Then rely on the Holy Spirit to guide you, and “keep in step with the Spirit” by faith.
 

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