Independence and Harmony

“Independence and Harmony “
TheologyGirl-ReformedWomen
Summary Comments

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Gal 1:10

“The problem with legalism is not that it calls people to obey God’s law, but that it views obedience as a means of gaining favor with God. Legalism appeals to our flesh because it give us a false sense of control, a false sense of worthiness, and a false sense of security.” “Keeping the rules,”  is something we do, something we feel good about, and something we think merits favor with God. Legalism evacuates the gospel’s promise and hope by   denying the truth of substitutionary atonement.” _CarolRuvolo

*  *  *

“This is what I call a “power-packed” chapter. On first read, one would  think this is all about the Apostle Paul, but in reality, it is not really about the man “Paul” but rather about the authority and power on which he preached and taught and WHAT he preached and taught. John the Baptist said, and we say, “we must decrease” and “Christ must increase” in our lives so it  is not “about” us or the Apostle Paul (or any other Apostle or theologian) but rather about God’s truth and its message in the true gospel. Now there are many gospels, “in the Garden,” in Paul’s day, and there are many gospels today. The first question we must ask is “what say ye of the Christ” and that means, in a nutshell, what is your doctrine of God? Before we can get on in the chapter and lesson with the questions that arise about Paul’s apostolic authority we must ask ourselves this question and look inside our own hearts and minds to see if we really do “know” our God as the total and complete Sovereign who divines and directs all things for His purposes. If we understand that He is who He says He is (and He is!) and understand that He alone is God doing what is pleasing in His sight for His own glory and purpose, then we can make heads and tails out of His authority and direction for the life of the Apostle Paul (and for us) and the “why’s” and “how’s” of the Apostle Paul arriving at such a place and time in redemptive history to proclaim the gospel of Christ to the Jews and Gentiles and, to us, through God’s Word.

The foundational truth that we must, without exception, know and acknowledge then as we study the Book of Galatians and this study, is our justification in Christ alone. It is the foundation of our theology and why we are “Reformed” believers. God is the author and giver of life and the gospel and unless we understand the true gospel, as I have mentioned in earlier posts and do so again, we will not understand or make heads or tails out of Scripture and God’s salvation of grace. “Salvation is of the Lord” as the
Scripture says and anything added or taken away is “another gospel” (a “so-called” gospel, a “false” gospel, a “second” or “different” gospel and one altogether different from the one and only true gospel). Thus, the doctrine of justification by faith is foundational and in the forefront of our thinking and application. If need be, we must “beat it into our heads continually,” as Luther so aptly put it:

“Justification is the truth of the gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consists. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well, teach it unto others, and beat it into our heads continually.”

Thus, we are not to be fooled into looking into areas that take us away from doctrine and unprofitable arguments and opinions about those things that do not affect our soul welfare, but rather we look to the truth of Scripture from the very mouth of God. He is the “Justifier” of His people; He is the “Elector” of His people and He is the Providential God who directs their steps down to the very hairs of their head and each breath they take. Paul’s apostolic authority and power to preach the true gospel of Christ comes from God’s providential purpose and plan in his life and to question God’s purposes and authority is to question God Himself. Men, especially today, want to go off into diverse and “so-called theological” discussions (especially this so-called “New Perspective on Paul”) about authority and make up their own “new” (which is old error, heresy, treatment) to take our eyes, and thus our heads, away from the truth of God’s doctrine and justification by faith. We are not fooled and God is not mocked. Know what you believe and do not let any lead you to “another gospel” which is not, again I say, NOT, the gospel of Christ. Paul preached and taught the “true gospel” and we are to do likewise. There is no compromise with error or heresy. There is no “works-plus-grace” gospel, there in only “works” because any work becomes work which will damn a soul to eternal wrath and hell.  There is only “grace” His grace, which is, by Christ alone through His faith alone. This is the only gospel that delivers souls and the only true gospel of the Bible. Anything else is polluted and mixture. We are to stand strong with God and the Apostle Paul, be bold and courageous, sharing the true gospel of grace and refute-flee from any type of gospel that stinks of works or legalism. God has defined the terms, not men, and to Him and His Word we look for truth. Works and legalism binds the hearts and minds of souls but the true gospel frees the soul to live, love and serve God acceptably.

“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a  gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we  have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel  contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.” Gal 1:8-9

Our independence and harmony flow from the knowledge of the True and Living God and who He is. He is the “I AM” and once we get that into our “heads” we can understand the power of living for God freely. We will not have “harmony” with all as neither Christ nor the Apostles did but we will have
freedom and harmony with our God who is our life and in whom we live and move and have our being. Be a Christ-pleaser and not a man-pleaser.  Seek Him and His Kingdom first and all these things will be given unto you. What  things? “Everything” that is needed for life and godliness with peace that  passes understanding. They too are His gifts of grace. This is freedom  indeed! What a joy to study these things!”_TheologyGirl

_____________

Excerpt: “Independence and Harmony ” Summary Comments,  THEOLOGYGIRL-REFORMED WOMEN BIBLE-BOOK STUDY “NO OTHER GOSPEL”  Finding True Freedom in the Message of Galatians  LESSON: Lesson#2: Chapter #2 TITLE: “Independence and Harmony”
TheologyGirl-ReformedWomen ©2012 All Rights Reserved

Waiting on God With The Heart

Theology Girl Reading Series
Book: Waiting On God!
Rev. Andrew Murray
February  2012

WAITING ON GOD:
Be Strong and of Good Courage.
Wait on the Lord: be strong,
And let your heart take courage:
Yea, wait thou on the Lord.’
—Ps. 27:14(R.V.)

With the Heart.

THE words are nearly the same as in our last meditation. But I gladly avail myself of them again to press home a much-needed lesson for all who desire to learn truly and fully what waiting on God is. The lesson is this: It is with the heart we must wait upon God. ‘Let your heart take courage.’ All our waiting depends upon the state of the heart. As a man’s heart is, so is he before God. We can advance no further or deeper into the holy place of God’s presence to wait on Him there, than our heart is prepared for it by the Holy Spirit. The message is, ‘Let your heart take courage, all you that wait on the Lord.’

The truth appears so simple, that some may ask, Do not all admit this? where is the need of insisting on it so specially? Because very many Christians have no sense of the great difference between the religion of the mind and the religion of the heart, and the former is far more diligently cultivated than the latter. They know not how infinitely greater the heart is than the mind. It is in this that one of the chief causes must be sought of the feebleness of our Christian life, and it is only as this is understood that waiting on God will bring its full blessing.

Proverbs 3: 5 may help to make my meaning plain. Speaking of a life in the fear and favor of God, it says, ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not upon your own understanding.’ In all religion we have to use these two powers. The mind has to gather knowledge from God’s word, and prepare the food by which the heart with the inner life is to be nourished. But here comes in a terrible danger, of our leaning to our own understanding, and trusting in our understanding of divine things. People imagine that if they are occupied with the truth, the spiritual life will as a matter of course be strengthened. And this is by no means the case. The understanding deals with conceptions and images of divine things, but it cannot reach the real life of the soul. Hence the command, ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not upon your own understanding.’ It is with the heart man believes, and comes into touch with God. It is in the heart God has given His Spirit, to be there to us the presence and the power of God working in us. In all our religion it is the heart that must trust and love and worship and obey. My mind is utterly impotent in creating or maintaining the spiritual life within me: the heart must wait on God for Him to work it in me.

It is in this even as in the physical life. My reason may tell me what to eat and drink, and how the food nourishes me. But in the eating and feeding my reason can do nothing: the body has its organs for that special purpose. Just so, reason may tell me what God’s word says, but it can do nothing to the feeding of the soul on the bread of life—this the heart alone can do by its faith and trust in God. A man may be studying the nature and effects of food or sleep; when he wants to eat or sleep he sets aside his thoughts and study, and uses the power of eating or sleeping. And so the Christian needs ever, when he has studied or heard God’s word, to cease from his thoughts, to put no trust in them, and to awaken his heart to open itself before God, and seek the living fellowship with Him.

This is now the blessedness of waiting upon God, that I confess the impotence of all my thoughts and efforts, and set myself still to bow my heart before Him in holy silence, and to trust Him to renew and strengthen His own work in me. And this is just the lesson of our text, ‘Let your heart take courage, all you that wait on the Lord.’ Remember the difference between knowing with the mind and believing with the heart. Beware of the temptation of leaning upon your understanding, with its clear strong thoughts. They only help you to know what the heart must get from God: in themselves they are only images and shadows. ‘Let your heart take courage, all ye that wait on the Lord.’ Present it before Him as that wonderful part of your spiritual nature in which God reveals Himself, and by which you can know Him. Cultivate the greatest confidence that, though you cannot see into your heart, God is working there by His Holy Spirit. Let the heart wait at times in perfect silence and quiet; in its hidden depths God will work. Be sure of this, and just wait on Him. Give your whole heart, with its secret workings, into God’s hands continually. He wants the heart, and takes it, and as God dwells in it. ‘Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all ye that wait on the Lord.’

‘My soul, wait thou only upon God!’