In bible study last night we discussed the first ten verses
of Galatians. At that time in Galatia a group
of peoples called the Judizers claimed that you needed to do all of these Old Testament
traditions and ceremonies to be right with God.
Apostle Paul explained that the Judizers were perverting the gospel by
added to it. Paul corrects them by explaining that salvation comes from Jesus
dying on the cross for our sins not from good works that we do.
As we went through our discussion questions we came to the
question: “How have you or do you pervert the gospel?” Then I
wondered: do we pervert the gospel by choosing who we share it with? Before I could open my mouth to share this
thought another guy in the study told a story about a time when he felt he had
the perfect opportunity to share who Jesus is and avoided it. Another guy shared a similar story. We all discussed how sharing your faith is
hard and challenging…but why? The answer that our study agreed on was: the
fear of rejection. Then after that we
read this verse:
“Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God?
Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not
be a servant of Christ.” Galatians: 1:10
Why does this fear stop us from exclaiming our love for our
Father in Heaven? When I became a
Christian I remember being incredibly excited and not caring who knew, in fact
I just wanted to tell everyone. So, where did this fear of rejection from? I remember
learning it mostly from Christians! After becoming a Christian I learned from other
Christians that people won’t accept us if they knew that we have this intimate
relationship with God. I’m positive not
all that negativity came from Christians. Even visiting different churches I
felt like I could not get excited about God because no one else was. According to the verse above we should not
look for that approval from man but from Christ. What if we lived everyday as for God and not
for appeasing man? Would your day look any different?
