Live by the Spirit

In Galatians 5:16-26, Paul teaches about the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is just as much God as the Father and Son are. Sometimes the Holy Spirit is forgotten and sometimes He is ignored because we are not altogether comfortable with Him. I am sure that we should be completely comfortable with Him. We should desire to experience His work in and through us.

Galatians 5:16

So, I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful the nature.

First, we are to live by the Spirit.

When Paul says we are to live by the Spirit, he means to allow the Spirit to fill us. Ephesians 5:18 says that we are to be continually filled with the Spirit.

The Spirit is to continually:

Guide our daily activities

Control our actions, words, thoughts, desires, and priorities

Empower us to do God’s will

If we live by the Spirit, some things won’t happen. We will not gratify or carry out the desires of the sinful nature.

The Holy Spirit has desires for you. If we allow God to fulfill His desires for us through the Holy Spirit, we will not carry out the desires of the sinful nature. We won’t because they are in opposition to each other and you will not want to do what our sinful natures desire.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is being filled with the Spirit and letting Him fulfill God’s desires in you.

Galatians 5:17

For the 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 are not to do whatever you want.

The Spirit and the sinful nature are contrary to each other. The sinful nature sets its desires against the desires of the Spirit. They will never be the same.

If we follow the desires of the sinful nature, it will lead to death.

If we follow the desires of the Spirit, it will lead to life.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is following the desires of the Spirit.

Galatians 5:18

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

The ability to obey God, to do His will, and to please God is by the work of His Spirit, not by following the law.

The Law shows us what we have done wrong.

Grace allows us to obey God’s will.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is letting God’s Spirit lead us and experiencing God’s grace.

In verses 19 through 21a Paul outlines the works of the sinful nature.

In verse 21b Paul says, “I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

If we live allowing the works of the sinful nature to characterize us, we will not receive God’s kingdom.

Then in verses 22 through 23 Paul outlines the fruit that the Holy Spirit gives.

In verse 23 Paul says that the law cannot bring about our receiving the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit only happens as we yield our lives to God and allow the Holy Spirit to produce it in us.

There are two huge differences in the works of the sinful nature and the fruit of the Spirit.

First, it is the “works” of the sinful nature as opposed to the “fruit” of the Spirit.

Works are what we do and fruit is produced by the Spirit.

Romans 6:23 says that the wage (what we earn) from sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life from Jesus.

Works lead to death.

God’s gifts lead to life.

Second, the works of the sinful nature reflect the character of our enemy, Satan. He wants to steal, kill and destroy us. The works of the sinful nature will steal from us, kill us, and destroy us. The fruit of the Spirit reflects the character of our Savior, Jesus. The fruit of the Spirit leads to life because the fruit is what characterize the life we have in Jesus.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is receiving the fruit of the Spirit as the Spirit produces it in us.

Galatians 5:24

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.

We as followers of Jesus allow the Spirit to kill the thoughts and desires that are not of Jesus.

Jesus says in Luke 9:23 that if we want to follow Him, we must deny ourselves and take up our cross daily.

The Spirit is the One who can kill off the thoughts and desire that are not of Jesus.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is letting the Spirit kill off all in us that is not pleasing to God.

Galatians 5:25-26

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

We are to live by the Spirit and we are to constantly follow the Spirit’s direction for our lives.

By living by the Spirit and following His direction, we will not become conceited and we will not provoke each other or envy each other.

This is another way that the Spirit forms in us the image of our Savior and Lord.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is allowing the Spirit to form in us the image of Jesus.

By the Spirit Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

Joe

Grace Leads to Freedom and Freedom to Truth

Grace leads to freedom.

Legalism leads to slavery.

Grace leads to truth.

Legalism leads to lies.

Paul discusses truth and lies, freedom and slavery. All of these topics revolve around focusing on grace over the law.

In Galatians 4:7 Paul tells the Galatian Christians that they were running a good race. Then he asks a question, “Who cut you off and kept you from obeying the truth?”

The Galatians had received the Gospel with great joy. They were made free by the truth that Paul had taught them and they were following Jesus. Some people had come and intimidated them into abandoning the grace that brought them into relationship with Jesus and into trying to follow the law.

In Galatians 6:8 Paul says that this kind of persuasion does not come from the One who calls you.

Paul is saying that what they had been told to get them to abandon grace and turn to the law was not from Jesus.

God’s Word says that salvation and everything else connected with a relationship with God is based in grace. Anything not based in grace is not from Jesus.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is based solely in the grace given to us by Jesus.

Galatians 5:9

A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.

In Matthew 16:6 Jesus warns His disciples about the yeast of the Pharisees. Jesus meant that the Pharisees had a false view of God and what it meant to follow God. The disciples were to stay away from what the Pharisees were teaching. Paul is saying the same thing to the Galatian Christians here.

Galatians 5:10

I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion will pay the penalty, whoever he may be.

Paul here expresses his confidence in the Galatian Christians. He knows they will continue to depend on grace and reject depending on the law.

Paul had taught the Galatians that salvation is by grace, and their faith in Jesus applied that grace to their lives. He had confidence that truth would not be rejected and abandoned by the Galatian Christians.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is trusting Jesus and trusting Him to work in and through His people.

Galatians 5:11-12

Brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished.

Paul asks a question: If he was still teaching that you are made right with God by observing the law, why was he being persecuted. If Paul was still in agreement with the old covenant based in the law, then he would not be attacked by the Jewish religious leaders and others.

Paul then says that if he was still teaching the law, he would be making the cross useless.

If salvation can come through following the law, then the cross is mean and cruel and useless.

It is only through the cross that our sins are forgiven.

It is only through the cross that access to God has been opened.

It is only through the cross that our salvation has been secured.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is centered in the cross.

Galatians 5:12

As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!

Paul shows his disdain for those who would come in and spread lies and cause disunity.

God puts great emphasis on unity for His people.

Jesus prays for unity among God’s people in John 17. He indicates that it is one of the things that marks us as the people of God.

Paul sees it as so important that he desires a rather extreme measure for those who would come and try to create disunity.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is being one in Jesus with other believers.

Galatians 5:13

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another on love.

Paul says that grace will lead to freedom. That freedom is not to be used to indulge our sinful desires. The freedom that Jesus gives us is to be used to serve others out of love.

In Matthew 20:28 Jesus said that He did not come to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many.

The model for our freedom to lead us to serve others is Jesus. Jesus was completely free and He used His freedom to serve others.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is serving others in love.

Galatians 5:14

The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Paul says that the core of what Jesus taught was to love your neighbor.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest command was, He said it was to, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength.”

Jesus then added that the second command was similar to the first. The second was to love your neighbor as yourself.

Then Jesus said the most amazing thing. That all the law and the prophets, the Old Testament law, was fulfilled if we love God and love others.

Galatians 5:15

If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

If we don’t genuinely love each other with the love that Jesus has for each of us, then we will wound each other’s souls and eventually destroy each other.      

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is loving God and each other with the love Jesus has for us.

The truth, Jesus says, will set you free. Lies keep you in slavery. Jesus died to make you free and Paul encourages us to live in that freedom.

By Grace Freely Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

Joe

Works or Faith?

Are you free? If you are free, then what makes you free?

Is your freedom from:

The country you live in?

The financial security in your bank account?

The ability you possess to accomplish even hard things?

The following of religious laws and rules?

The problem with all those is that they all depend on things that could change.

Paul talks about true freedom in Galatians 5:1-6.

Galatians 5:1

It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

We have been set free by God so that we can be free.

We have been so conditioned by life to believe that, when someone does something for us, it has a condition or price tag. We think that the person who does something for us wants something from us.

Paul says that God is not like that. God has set us free so that we can be free. God has not set us free so we can do something for Him. He has set us free so we can be free.

We are to stand firm and not let anyone take us back into slavery. Slavery in this context means depending on anything for our freedom except Jesus.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is letting Jesus make us free and depending on Jesus for our freedom.

Galatians 5:2-4

Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again, I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

Paul uses the example of circumcision to show why trying to find freedom in keep the law does not work.

When we depend on the law or anything else that is about what we do, it leads to declaring that Jesus is of no value.

If by what we do we could make ourselves free or justify ourselves, then Jesus’ death on the cross means nothing. It means that Jesus’ death was unnecessary and foolish.

If by what we do we could make ourselves free or justify ourselves, then we have to obey all of the law. We cannot just obey part of the law or even most of the law, and we have to do it one hundred percent of the time. We cannot have one slip.

If by what we do we could make ourselves free or justify ourselves, then we alienate ourselves from Jesus and fall away from grace.

Doing all the right things all the time cannot free us or justify us because we cannot do it.

Law cannot free us.

Law cannot justify us.

Law can enslave us.

So, what frees and justifies us?

Galatians 5:5-6

But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

Paul says that there are two things that free us.

One is faith.

Two is love.

Faith in Jesus, and love from Jesus, and that love being expressed through the way we live, will bring us real freedom.

Jesus was the freest person who has ever lived. He had complete trust in the Father, He knew that the Father loved Him, and Jesus lived out that love by loving others. 

The Holy Spirit gives us that same ability as He indwells us.

Through the Spirit we can:

Have complete faith in God

Know that God loves us

Love others with nothing held back

It is not about rules or religion.

It is about relationship.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is depending on the indwelling presence and work of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus came to free us and save us. We can be saved but still living in bondage based on a lie. The lie is: It is based on us, how hard we try and how well we perform that sets us free.

Jesus wants you to be free so you can be free.

In Freedom Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

Joe

Law or Grace?

I love grace. I love the fact that God is not just a God of grace but He is grace.

I know that without God’s grace I have no chance. I am hopeless without grace.

In Galatians 4:21-31 salvation and a relationship with God based in grace is contrasted with salvation and a relationship with God based in the law.

Galatians 4:21

Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says?

Paul asks those people who want to try to experience salvation and relate to God based in law if they know what the law says.

The law cannot bring salvation because you have to keep the law perfectly and do it all the time to fulfill the law for it to effectively provide you with salvation. No mere human being has ever done that.

The law cannot establish a relationship with God because God does not relate to His human creation based on rules and regulation.

Paul asks these law-based people this question because, if they really knew and understood the law, they would not expect it to do what it cannot do.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is not looking to the law for salvation or relationship.

Galatians 4:22-23

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born in the ordinary way; but the son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise.

Abraham had two sons:

Ishmael by the slave Hagar

Isaac by the free woman Sarah

Ishmael was born in an ordinary way, just like everybody else.

Isaac was born as a result of God’s promise, in a supernatural way.

The contrast:

Depend on the ordinary human way by trying based on what you can do or depend on the supernatural way based on what God can do.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Wall is depending on what God can do.

Galatians 4:24-25

These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: That is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem because she is in slavery with her children.

The slave woman, Hagar, represents a covenant based on the law and leads to slavery.

When you try to depend on the law for salvation and relationship it will not provide what you are looking for. It will lead to the slavery of trying to earn salvation and be worthy of the relationship. The truth is that neither are possible. You will be a slave.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is not living in the slavery of trying to be good enough.

Galatians 4:26-27

But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written: “Be glad, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth and cry aloud, you who have no labor pains; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.”

A truth is revealed that there is another Jerusalem other than the earthly one. There is a heavenly Jerusalem.

Then in verse 27 Paul quotes Isaiah 54:1.

The barren woman who has had no children is to rejoice because she had no children. The truth is there are more children produced by the desolate or slave woman than the woman who has a husband or the free woman. It is easier to depend on the law than to depend on grace for salvation and relationship.

The reason is simple: We like to earn things for ourselves. We don’t like to depend on anybody or anything else because we don’t like to feel that we owe anyone else. That is called pride.

Pride is about “I”.

I did it.

I achieved it.

I am capable and don’t need your help.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is letting God remove the pride and humbly accepting God’s grace.

Galatians 4:28-31

Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time the son born in the ordinary way persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. But what does the Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but the free woman.

Paul says that when we depend on grace and the law, there are three things true about us:

We are children of the promise – we can live depending on the promises of God.

We are children of the inheritance – we have an eternal inheritance based in Jesus.

We are children of freedom – we are not enslaved but free to be who God created us to be.

The law was given to make us aware of sin and our inability to fulfill the law.

Grace was given so we could experience the freedom of depending on Jesus and His grace. 

Why would I want to place myself under the law and try to earn my salvation and relate to God by trying to fulfill the law?

I have no clue!

Law = Slavery & Death

Grace = Freedom & Life

As a Child of the Free Woman Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                     Joe