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Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

Prayer for Faith

Give us, Lord, a lively faith, a firm hope, a fervent charity, a love of you. Take from us all lukewarmness in meditation, dullness in prayer. Give us fervor and delight in thinking of you and your grace, your tender compassion towards us. The things we pray for, good Lord, give us grace to labor for: through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Mason Barge //2017

~ Sir Thomas More, 16th century

To Use My Gifts While I Have Them

Heavenly Father, I know that you have made my life on earth temporary. I know that my body will fail, slowly. There are things I can do today that I will not be able to do in the near future. There are gifts of my body that I will not have much longer.

Prepare me, I pray, for the inevitable loss of abilities, so that when they come, I may have comfort in my suffering, the comfort of perfect happiness soon to come. And let me live and use my abilities today, and for the short years while I have them, to live in obedience to your will and to walk in such good works as you have set out before me. In Christ’s name, I pray,

Mason Barge 9/2018

Meditation

“God has no use for the prayers of people who won’t listen to Him.”

Proverbs 28:9

Dedication

All through this day, O Lord, fill me with the power of your living Spirit. Let me touch the lives of others for good, whether through the words I speak, the prayers I speak, or the life I live.

Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.

Adjustments

Galatians 2:17-18 (BSB)

ut if, while we seek to be justified in Christ, we ourselves are found to be sinners, does that make Christ a minister of sin? Certainly not! 18If I rebuild what I have already torn down, I prove myself to be a lawbreaker.

Notes on the Scripture

The Meaning of Sin (Galatians #19)

We promised that parts of Paul’s epistles were hard to follow, but do not be dismayed. We will just read through them slowly enough to understand exactly what he is saying. It really isn’t rocket science; the only difficulty is that it was written in an ancient language.

First off, we must always keep in mind the most important and basic truth of Paul’s theology, stated in the preceding verse (Gal. 2:16): Human beings are not justified before God by keeping the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. We cannot earn salvation by our good deeds; and specifically, we cannot earn salvation by complying with the Law of Moses.

Now, Paul argues a logical corollary. If we believe in salvation through Christ, we cannot also believe in salvation through the Law.

Thus, we can see what he means in v. 18, “If I rebuild what I have already torn down, I prove myself to be a lawbreaker [or transgressor].” What he has torn down is reliance on the Law of Moses. Paul has learned that the purpose of the Law was not salvation, but to show him that he was a sinner and needed Christ. (See Romans 7:7: “I would not have known sin if it had not been for the law. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet'.”) Now, if he goes back and “rebuilds” reliance on the Law of Moses, he is preferring his old sinfulness to the salvation he has found in the gospel. In Christ we are forgiven; Christ’s forgiveness cleanses us of sin. So if we then go back to Judaic legalism, an attempt to find salvation by works, we are choosing sin over salvation!

I hope this helps to explain verse 17. If someone is preaching the gospel — the good news of salvation in Christ — but is also trying to rely upon the Law of Moses, they seem to be saying that salvation in Christ comes by compliance with the Law. It would be like saying that Christ is the “minister of sin,” i.e. a priest of the Law of Moses.

There are an important caveat we must remember. The Law itself is good and righteous. In fact, it is the basis of Western morality. Paul will state this explicitly in later writings. E.g., “The law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” (Romans 7:12) We try to follow the Law, especially the Ten Commandments, because we love to obey God. But we know that we will not be saved by following the Law.

We see two other takeaways in these verses, that have more practical application to the modern Christian:

1. What Christians will I eat with at, say, a church dinner? Are we going to eat with our friends, or the people who look like us, or the people we are most comfortable with? Or does it serve Christ better if we sit and eat with someone we have little in common with? Someone different from us in worldly terms, perhaps someone less popular, someone much older or younger, more or less educated, etc.?
2. We all sin sometimes. The representatives of Christ, however, cannot sin flagrantly or openly, lest they appear to “make Christ a minister of sin.” Hypocrisy of the clergy is a horrendous obstacle to spreading the Gospel, today as always. We tend to judge the clergy more leniently, because we see them as authority figures. But they really should be judged more strictly; because to preach Christ while living a worldly or sinful life cannot be tolerated. Greed, sexual immorality, drunkenness, etc., disqualifies a man from serving as a church leader. (See 1 Corinthians 5:9-13; 1 Timothy 3)

Daily Inspiration

“A Clean-Slated New Day”

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