I’ve always been surprised at our ability as humans to adapt, change, and alter our expectations.

Context.

I’m writing this post at 7:10am and the temperature is 21°c. Watch your jealousy! I was chatting to someone who lives in this climate and they were talking about how they are so used to it now that they nearly don’t even think about it. They haven’t always lived here so I found their statement even more surprising! Of course, the same would happen to me, the some would happen to all of us.

We get used to things, we adapt. We do it with lots of things.

We get new trainers, T-shirt, books etc. and we look after them like they were the most precious things on earth. No creases, no dirt, we want them pristine. Then within a week or so they become just like everything else and we treat them no differently than other stuff we own. What seemed precious about these things initially seems less so as time moves on.

What does this mean for us spiritually?

I was reading a book in the Bible today called Galatians. It was written by the apostle Paul mostly likely to a group of churches in what we now know as Turkey. Paul founded these churches along with a guy called Barnabus, and was writing to them in order to correct some issues that had arisen since they were there. In chapter 3, where I was reading today, we see that Paul wasn’t holding back in some of his comments to them.

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Gal 3:1-3

What we know is that there had been people in the church who had begun to crack down on the new believers. They were taking the new life that Christ offered, which had been given to them as a gift, and were turning it into a law or reward that could be earned. New believers were being convinced to turn from what they knew to what they were hearing from these teachers.

Their relationship with God had started through His grace but they thought they could sustain it through their pace

If we are following Jesus we will have experienced His grace and His spirit. Whether it was the moment we first made the decision to follow Him, a time where we first felt His presence, or saw His Kingdom break into our lives with miraculous power. In those moments we were accutely aware that it wasn’t about us. We couldn’t make these things happen. We knew it was about Jesus. He was the source, we were the sent. Those moments were powered by Him.

Unfortunately what I’ve noticed too often is that it doesn’t remain this way. In time our efforts to continue following Christ become more about our ability or inability to understand, apply, explain, and ‘drive’ us forward. I’m unsure why we do this. Maybe its the busyness of life, the western drive for self actualisation, our experience of disappointment, awkward questions asked by others, (all of these engineered by the enemy) that cause us to begin to rely less on God and more on our own knowledge and experience. Maybe our increased experience means that we forget to ‘check in’ with God because we already have a good idea what to do.

To borrow a phrase from Paul which we could apply to us all- foolish people!!

What’s even worse than that is that we try to apply our seemingly maturing wisdom to those who are experiencing His grace, to those who are trying to live by the spirit and those who aren’t trying to do it on their own strength. We often refer to them as immature, inexperienced, and uninitiated in this Jesus life. We offer them ‘wisdom’ about how to remain in Christ, most of which consists of us unwittingly telling them to lean on their own strength and understanding.

How do we fix it? I think the first thing that is vital for us in this journey is a commitment to never forgetting that we are a spirit filled product of grace. We weren’t good enough to earn it before we came to Christ and in and of ourselves we aren’t good enough to sustain or grow in it when we are in Christ. It is Christ who saved us, saves us, sustains us, holds us, empowers us, emboldens us, forgives us, exalts us, delights in us, and calls us. We must never forget the truth of this. We died to ourselves and we hand over responsibility to Jesus.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” Galatians 2:20-21