Preserving His Message of Grace

Hello everyone. We bless God for the start of a new week. We have another opportunity to spread the fragrance of God all around us.

In my post today as we continue our considerations on the subject of God’s grace, we’ll move to chapter 2 of Galatians. We will consider the first 5 verses:

“Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also…and meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain. Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you” Galatians 2:1-5 New International Version.

Paul was accompanied by Barnabas and Titus to Jerusalem where he had gone for some private discussions with the apostles about the nature and content of his message to the Gentiles. Some Jewish people were still insisting on physical circumcision and some other aspects of the Law of Moses as prerequisites for God's acceptance. They just did not believe that the grace of God was adequate for salvation. 

Paul along with the other apostles however, understood that God’s grace was enough for salvation. If they had believed that God’s grace was not enough then Paul’s visit was a good opportunity for a firm and loud statement to be made- Titus was a Greek and they could have compelled him to be circumcised.

Verse 5 portrays their steady adherence to God’s principle of grace. They did not even for a moment give in to them or yield in submission and walk in compromise. They did that to preserve the truth of God. I consider that action one of the most important actions ever taken in the history of the church for the preservation of truth. We may not have been where we are now if Paul and the other apostles had given in. 

The reality is that those “false believers” have never been completely absent around us. All through the years, they have remained around the church in every generation attempting to distort the grace of God. Over the years many people have had to stand in the position Paul and the apostles stood back then. Many of those people actually lost their lives in the process of safe-guarding the truth, all for the purpose of ensuring that the precious deposit of the message of God’s grace reached all the way down to us.

Today, God’s gospel of grace is still under attack as many of us will very clearly see all around us. My point to us in this post is a call to responsibility. I see it as a sacred trust and so should you. God has deposited His truth with us and we have a responsibility to pass it on in that pure form to the next generation. It may only be your family or just friends and people around you, allow God to use you as a channel of transmitting His message of grace. We cannot afford to be the broken link. We must preserve His message of grace.

Have a very lovely week everyone.