Galatians 4:12-20 Love not Rituals
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: June 12, 2020 Galatians 4:12-20
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.
(Understanding the Text) What does Paul mean that he has become as the Galatians are? Is he referring to not keeping the Jewish traditions? Or is he referring to kindness and generosity because of the leading of the Holy Spirit? The context before seems to indicate that Paul is telling them to stop trying to become Jews first and then Christians second. Paul seems to be saying that he is first a Christian and secondarily a Jew. The context after would indicate that Paul is telling them that kindness and generosity are the way to please God, not ceremonies and observances of various rituals. After considering it again, I think that Paul is saying that just as the Gentile Christians went from being Gentiles to followers of Christ, Paul went from being a Jew to being a follower of Christ. The met at the central point of being followers of Christ first, last, and only. Paul is telling them to come back to the middle rather than going to the other extreme where Paul started off.
Paul says that he was having some severe physical difficulty when he came to the Galatians. Was it his eyes since he says that they would have gouged out their own eyes for him? Or is that just a saying of some kind? I tend to think that it was migraines since that would affect the eyes also, but part of that is my resistance to having anything be a problem with Paul’s eyes since he had been healed of his initial blindness by Ananias. The point is that the Galatians loved Paul and took care of him and did not despise his weakness. They were the opposite of the Corinthians. The Corinthians had to be taught by Paul to love. For this reason, he could not take any kind of support from them because they would suspect that he was using them, but the Galatians freely gave love and kindness when Paul came to them in weakness.
The Galatians already knew the basic rule of the kingdom of heaven even before they knew Jesus, so Satan wanted to distract them from that rule by making them believe that they were not good enough. They wanted to please so much and were so humble that when the Judaizers came to them, they obediently began doing exactly what they were told by the “enlightened” Christians from Jerusalem. Paul tells them that in doing so, they were wandering off the correct road that they had been following before. They had been following the leading of the Holy Spirit. Now, they were following the example of corrupt Christians.
Paul tells them that the Judaizers were using them. The Judaizers were giving the Gentile Christians a lot of attention and focus, but Paul says that it was not because the Judaizers had the best interests of the Galatians at heart. Instead, the Judaizers were trying to puff themselves up by making the Gentiles into 2nd class Christians while the Jewish Christians were first class Christians.
Paul then says that where before he was confident that the Galatians were growing in God’s grace with no difficulty, now he is worried that they have gotten way off track. He feels like he is going through childbirth with them all over again. He wants them to have Jesus formed inside of them. At one time, he was confident that he was seeing Jesus there, but now he needs to push Jesus back inside of them. He tells them that it is okay for people to treat them as special as long as the people are not using them. Paul says that he thinks that they are special, and if he were only there with them, he is sure that he would be able to know that they were still the loving people that he remembered. However, from a distance hearing the things that he is hearing, he is perplexed by the difference between what he is hearing and what he remembers about their loving care and joyous acceptance of Jesus.
(Revelation of God) Too often Christians have the attitude that God forgave them, so now they have to do something to keep His approval. If they fall short, He will take His approval away. Yes, it is possible to leave God once we have accepted His grace, but according to Revelation 2:4-5, God’s approval is based on our loving Him, not following rituals of worship. “But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.” (Revelation 2:4-5). The Ephesians were doing all the right actions, but they were worshipping God as if He were an idol who had to be appeased rather than their Father who desired their love.
(Application / Prayer) I remember that in my encounters with 2nd and 3rd generation Adventists when I was young, there was a kind of unthinking veiled contempt for new converts. I saw it in the older adults more than the younger people because the younger people were already rejecting the older adults’ ways of thinking by compartmentalizing their own lives. I remember overhearing a missionary in Indonesia saying that new converts should not be pastors until they had years to be indoctrinated into the Adventist message. I have seen that same attitude among some of the liberal Adventist Facebook crowd also. They cannot seem to understand (and as a young Adventist, I did not understand) that enthusiasm for the message and for God are higher requirements than years of study in a seminary. They do not see that they themselves are missing the vital spark of first love. They have lost something essential that all the knowledge in the world cannot replace. I pray never to lose that fire in the belly for You again. You always kept the spark alive in me, but I want it to be a blazing furnace of love for You.