Christianity can
be funny and amusing when left up to people. We Christians like to mess up what
faith truly is. When I first became a Christian, I loathed Christian music. I
thought it was overplayed, had extremely bad cheesy lyrics from untalented
musicians (A little judgmental, lol). I said to myself kill me now if I ever
get caught listening to Christian music. Not everything was bad to me, I did
enjoy some of it (DC Talk = amazing, Jars
of Clay) but the majority of it, I made a point of liking the music I liked
before I was a Christian. To make a point the same day I purchased an Eminem CD
I purchased a Jennifer Knapp CD (Anybody who knows Jennifer Knapp would know
the irony behind this). We Christians like to make faith our own sometimes and
look down on those who don’t see things our way. The problem with this way of
life, it doesn’t matchup biblically.
Christianity is
not our view of faith but trying to wrap out minds around the way God see
things instead of the way we see them. I once knew some Christians that had no
problem and were pretty open about drinking, but if you watched an R rated
movie you were going straight to hell for sickening your mind. Jesus brought
about a major change in faith. When we look at faith there was a major change
with rules. The Old Testament had the Mosaic Law. You followed the and you
showed you were faithful to God, but then came Jesus, the old way was gone and
a new way came forward. It caused friction between the followers of God. Some
people were stuck in the old ways and couldn’t embrace what Jesus brought
about. They were stuck in the old ways.
Paul describes
this with a weird story I had to read over multiple times in Galatians 4:21-27…
21 Tell
me, you who want to be under the law are you not aware of what the law says? 22 For
it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other
by the free woman 23 His son by the slave woman was born
according to the flesh but his son by the free woman was born as the result of
a divine promise.
24 These
things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One
covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is
Hagar. 25 Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and
corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with
her children. 26 But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and
she is our mother. 27 For it is written:
“Be glad, barren woman,
you who never bore a child;
shout for joy and cry
aloud,
you who were never in
labor;
because more are the
children of the desolate woman
than of her who has a
husband.”
Paul uses an
allegory (story with a hidden meaning) about Abraham’s two sons. He does this
to show the new side of God, the side of grace after Jesus came. After Jesus
came the Old Covenant (Represented by Hagar and a son that came from human
ways) was gone. A new way of grace was shown, the New Covenant was from Sarah
and Isaac being born amazingly from God’s promise. While the last couple of
verses 28-30 explains this harshly about Hagar, but the overall point is grace.
Sarah show’s us
God’s grace through Jesus. Abraham and Sarah couldn’t conceive, so they went
about human ways to conceive a son. Yet later in life, God showed mercy and
gave Sarah the son she couldn’t have on her own. God came through. We do this
with faith when we look at following Jesus through our own understanding rather
then Biblically. They conceived a son and a lot of major problems came from
this. This is what happens when we follow rules instead of following God’s
grace he shows us through Jesus and through scripture.
The old rules
are gone and Jesus brought about a new side of faith, grace. It’s grace that
saves us. I make plenty of mistakes and have struggles, but God gives us grace
through Jesus. This is what Paul ends with: following the old laws misses the
point of what faith is all about. When we make that decision to follow Christ
we are now sons and daughters of God. No rules, just right. God gives us
freedom through Christ, share that freedom and grace today.
Have a great
day.
