Source: https://shayreyner.com/2015/01/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 12:43:58+00:00

Document:
If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father.
If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.
Imagine for a moment that you’re adopting a child. As you meet with the social worker in the last stage of the process, you’re told that this twelve-year old has been in and out of psychotherapy since he was three. He persists in burning things, and attempting repeatedly to skin kittens alive. He “acts out sexually,” the social worker says, although she doesn’t really fill you in on what that means. She continues with a little family history. This boy’s father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather all had histories of violence, ranging from spousal abuse to serial murder. Each of them ended life the same way, dead by suicide–each found hanging from a rope of blankets in his respective prison cell.
Think for a minute. Would you want this child? If you did adopt him, wouldn’t you watch nervously as he played with your other children? Would you watch him nervously as he looks at the butcher knife on the kitchen table? Would you leave the room as he watched a movie on television with your daughter, with the lights out?
Well he’s you. And he’s me.
That’s what the gospel is telling us.
Think about it – even though we are known by the Father to be a wicked reprobate, He still chooses us. He still adopts us. He still wants us to be His child. Perhaps we don’t understand just how wicked we really were apart from Christ. Perhaps we need to understand that the gospel does not tell us that we were good people whom God can make better, but that we were wicked, that we were dead in our sin, that we needed to be made alive.
When we understand that we are known by God, it should make us want to know God.
v. 5 – Do you know what is meant theologically by the phrase “already, not yet”? How does this verse relate?
v.11 – What does Paul mean by “the offense of the cross”?
v.13 – How might believers use their freedom in Christ to indulge the sinful nature?
v.22 – This verse talks about the fruit of the Spirit. Why is it not the “fruits” of the Spirit?
Father, I am very grateful for the gift of this healthy little boy that I have the privilege of being “Pop Pop” to. I want to ask that even now you would begin the process of drawing him to Yourself. Use Chad and Christy to model a vibrant faith for him. Use Grayson as a loving brother to show him the love of Christ. Put friends around him in the years to come who pursue holiness. Use his pastor and his church to teach him and encourage him to seek You. And may his heart be hungry for the transforming gospel as it is preached and presented to him along the way.
And as he learns to trust You, would You fill him with Your joy. May Your joy indeed be his strength to live courageously, to walk humbly, and to fight sin tenaciously.
Also I ask that You would fuel him daily with Your peace. May he experience a contentment in You that can only come from a deep awareness of the “peace that surpasses all understanding” that is only found in You.
As he grows into a man may his life exude a living hope because he has experienced a resurrection from death to life. And may he be used to help others find this great and glorious hope as well. May his life give testimony through his actions and his words that Jesus is the only temporal and eternal hope for all peoples.
And finally would You empower him by Your Spirit. Empower him with compassion for others. Empower him with a faith that inspires others. Empower him with kindness and gentleness. Empower him with a gladness that makes his soul sing and his heart worship.
I ask this because You have told me to ask and I do so in the matchless name of Christ the Lord.
Kind of long but worth the read. It compliments my post on Galatians 3.
“From the essay on Love, in which he describes as a wilderness experience his daily visits with his wife to a hospital 3,000 miles from home in a strange city, where someone he loves is in danger of dying.
And one thing that I know to be true is this… God is a promise keeper!
v 5 – What does it mean to be redeemed?
v 6 – What is the significance of the word “Abba”?
v 8 – Describe in what ways we were slaves?
v 9 – Why does Paul differentiate between knowing God and being known by God? What’s the difference?
v 15 – Why is the question that Paul asks here a great question: “What has happened to your joy?” When is the appropriate time to ask it?
v 20 – What does this verse reveal about how Paul felt about the Galatians?
And yet, don’t we do the same. We walk through this life as believers with a “got to” attitude rather than a “get to” attitude. And as a result, instead of experiencing the liberating joy of the gospel we feel bound up by the incarcerating rules of legalism.
Has my old sinful nature indeed been put to death (crucified)?
Is it evident that Christ is alive in me?
In what ways does my life (and my lifestyle) demonstrate that I am living by faith?
Do I daily treasure the fact that Christ loved me so much that He gave Himself for me?
How do I display my gratitude to Him for rescuing me?
v 1-4: How do you react to criticism rebuke? How do you think the Galatians responded when they first read this?
v 8: How did Paul define the gospel in this verse? How does this differ from the way that we typically think of it. What can we learn from this?
v 9: Why was Abraham considered such a great “man of faith”?
v 11: What is this verse so significant in church history?
v 15-18: Who came first Abraham or Moses? Why is this significant to Paul’s argument regarding grace and law?
v 21-22: What are some of the promises of God that we need to regularly be reminded of?
v 23-24: How does the law enslave us? Why is “justification by faith” so liberating?
v 26-29: Why is what Paul is saying here such a radical concept to the early church?
v. 4 – I love the word that Paul uses here to describe what Christ did for us. He “rescued” us. We were in dire straits, on the verge of eternal lostness, and Christ brought us back from the dead. There was absolutely nothing I could do to help myself. If Christ had not intervened then I was a goner. But because of what He did I can experience the newness of life everyday.
v. 6-9 – Paul does not mince words AT ALL when it comes to people who toy with the gospel. In this case people were adding to the gospel, telling new believers that they in addition to believing that they also had to follow the Law. It was grace +. Anytime you add to or subtract from grace you have perverted the gospel. Paul says “let him be eternally condemned.” There is much of this going on in our day as well. We need to be very careful that we are not taken in by “preachers” who tickle our ears with stuff that makes us feel good but that minimizes sin, repentance, and grace.
v. 10-11 – Admittedly, I am a people pleaser. But I a hope that the approval of God is more important to me than the approval of man. A correct and thorough understanding of the gospel is essential to being a God-pleaser. Our souls need to be drenched in the gospel so that our hungry and hurting hearts can be quenched by the gospel.
v. 4 – How do believers recognize and identify “false brothers?” What does Paul mean by the “freedom we have in Christ”? How has religion robbed believers of their freedom in Christ in our Christian culture today?
v. 9 – Who are the people in Christendom that would be recognized as pillars today? What is it that makes someone stand out as a pillar?
v. 11-13 – How was Peter acting like a hypocrite? How has hypocrisy hurt the modern day church? Where do you identify hypocrisy in your personal life? How is this stunting your growth and keeping others from Christ?
v. 15-16 – Why do so many religions base salvation on “observing the law?” How is Christianity different? Why is it a much better way? What does the phrase “justified by faith” mean? How would you explain this concept to an unbeliever?
v. 20 – Why is this verse a verse worth memorizing? What does this one verse communicate to us about the gospel?

References: v. 

v. 

v. 

v. 

v. 

v. 

v. 

v. 

v.