We’ve all heard the phrase, “The main thing in life is to keep the main thing the main thing.”
OK. So what is the main thing?
Ask 10 people in a shopping mall this question and you’ll probably get 10 different answers.
Ask the Apostle Paul this question and you’ll likely hear a repeat of his words in Galatians 5:6.
“What is important is faith expressing itself in love.”
These words are part of an appeal by Paul to Christians in the Galatian region of what is now Turkey. Divisive teachers were infiltrating the congregations of new believers and trying to turn Christians into Mosaic Law slaves.
Trusting Christ wasn’t enough, the teaching went. A person also had to keep Jewish rules and regulations — including circumcision — if there were to be hope of heaven, according to the false teachers.
Paul took the knife from the rabbis’ hands, however, with his Holy Spirit-inspired teaching with these simple, direct words — “For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.”
Notice the words “cut off.”
That was not by accident.
It’s not the spilling of our blood or the change to our flesh or the clinging to reams of rules that saves our souls.
It’s the spilled blood of Christ and the change in our hearts and the clinging to Christ that saves our souls.
This being the case, our responsibility is not to think we have to keep earning heaven but instead to keep expressing our hope of heaven by loving people in all kinds of ways.
Will you make a specific effort today to express your faith with a loving action for a co-worker?
For a neighbor?
For a discouraged church member?
For a family member?
Let’s keep the main thing the main thing.
Let’s love somebody in Jesus’ name.
It’s the faithful thing to do.
As always, I love you
Martin
