…..After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Galatians 3:3 (NIV)

This verse jumped out when I was last reading the book of Galatians.

This is some divided thinking about when Paul first visited the Galatians, some think it was South Galatia in Acts 13-14 and some think it was North Galatia in Acts 16. In the southern theory we learn that after Paul left the Galatian towns they gave into into “agitators” (Paul’s words) whose understanding of salvation differed from Pauls. We hear in Acts about some of this happening and it seems like this had spread to the Galatian church. Much of the ‘gospel’ that they were spreading was the need to stick to strict rules around Jewish practises and that these were the key to salvation. It’s out of that context the above verse is used.

I’ve grown up in Northern Ireland and so I understand that context. The common pattern we see here is people giving their lives to Jesus often in moments of conviction, encounter or sometimes loss. These are often beautiful momenta inspired and empowered by the Holy Spirit – they begin by means of the spirit.

It is often alarming how often that same spirit that brought them to Jesus is left behind as they set upon a stepped, structured approach to move closer to Jesus. The result is that they don’t produce fruits of the spirit but fruits of religion. They try to behave the way that a believer displaying the fruits of the spirit would behave, but they’ve got it the wrong way round and they haven’t experienced the spirit at all.

The people who are more passionate about Jesus than they were when they started are always the ones who have journeyed with the spirit.

We must keep leaning into the spirit and we must keep pointing others towards the spirit as they continue their journey with Jesus.