Greetings folks:
This week we will wrap up our current unit with the reconciliation of the Galatians 6:1 principle with the Matthew 28:17 principle. We understand that God wants His Image and Likeness propagated. And that He passes down this Power for us to this in the context of friendship and love. This produces the need to love God with all of our hearts and very being…and in-turn love our neighbors. In other words, we cannot propagate God’s Image and Likeness (Genesis 1:26, 28), if we ourselves aren’t giving the selfless love first to Him and to those around us. To do this appropriately, we must also give reproof, as the Word of God is designed to both uplift and convict. So we must do so in a spirit of gentleness (also part of the Fruit of the Spirit we use to love one another, Galatians 5:22-23). We get unmet expectation levels, and “surprise circumstances” (they at least surprise us when our connection with God isn’t as tight as needs to be), and this can kill our desire to fellowship with God and give Him the time and love with Him He desires out of us. And when this becomes part of the behavior pattern we fall into humanism…either secular or religious. Now understand this…humanism, especially religious humanism, is not reflective (in of itself) of whether or not someone is saved, but rather, how empowered they are (see the next unit). Humanism essentially is, “Because of ‘xyz’ that happened or didn’t happened to me, I’m going to trust in ‘abc’ over God.” Can humanists be unsaved? Yes. But it is also reflective of a the power source the person is operating out of. The fundamental issue of these alternative power sources is that when the appropriate God of the Bible is removed from the picture, and is substituted out as the fellowship and power source, it is impossible to give appropriate reproof in love, or give love to others. And laying one’s life down for their friends (John 15:13) is also out of the window. Keep this and the other teachings in mind, and when you find yourself in an alternate power source, confess, get forgiveness, repent, and get BACK IN THE SPIRIT. Next week we’ll start a new unit on the nature of Salvation. Have a good week folks!
