Mark’s blog

Read Galatians 2:11-21

For some it might be hard to imagine that Peter would succumb to social pressures or what many today call peer pressure. However, that is exactly what happened when a group of men came to Antioch claiming to have been sent by the Apostle James in Jerusalem, it is important to note that Acts 15:24 quells these “certain men’s” claim that they were sent by James. These men obviously had a problem with the idea of gentiles becoming Christians and not following after Jewish customs. I think it is a fairly safe bet that these are some of the Judaizers Paul refers to in chapter one and the beginning of chapter two. Nevertheless, it would seem that Peter enjoyed feasting with the gentile believers, however, when these men came Peter changed his tune and separated himself from the gentile believers for fear of what others might think. I can only imagine how the gentile believers must have felt when this happened, after sharing what was probably some wonderful times of fellowship only to see Peter act like that, it must have been quite disheartening.

I am sure that Peter tried to dress it up and say that he was just trying to avoid a huge conflict but the problem was that Peter knew better, he knew that the gentile believers were Christians just as much as he was and they deserved no lesser treatment than that of anyone else. The greater problem occurred when others followed after Peter and shunned the gentiles as well. When Peter should have been standing up and setting the right example he was sitting down and setting the wrong one for others to follow. Now it is certainly easy for us to criticize Peter at this point and shake our heads because we would never do such a terrible thing, but the truth is we all have made compromises at one point or another with what we know to be right. Furthermore, we all have played the part of the gentiles or the part of Peter; either being abandoned by the hypocrite or playing the part ourselves.
 

The apostle Paul’s public rebuke of Peter certainly flies in the face of the idea that Peter was infallible. The fact is that Peter was but a mere man who succumbed to the flesh; a battle which every last one of us will deal with at one time or another. This is a battle that the Apostle Paul clearly recognized and so aptly laid out for us in the seventh chapter of Romans when he said that the good which he willed to do, he did not do; but, it was the evil which he willed not to do, that is what he did, he went on to say “ O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Friends, the answer is Jesus Christ! Paul reminds Peter in verse sixteen, that we (then and now) are all justified by faith in Jesus Christ, we are not justified by anything else, not by works and definitely not by the law, and to place ourselves under a system that says Christ’s blood is not enough is the equivalent of looking up to heaven and telling God that His son died for nothing. Friends, Christ did not die to rebuild the law, He died to tear down that middle wall of separation, He died to tear down the curtain that once separated us from the Holy of Holies granting us access to the very throne room of God.

I was at a retreat this past weekend and a gentleman from the National Guard got up and spoke for about twenty minutes and he was talking about each one of us who call ourselves Christian are essentially a soldier for Christ, enlisted in Gods army. I can remember from my own days in the military marching by cadences and as I was reading the last few verses of this chapter over and over verse 20 kept jumping out at me and I began to see a cadence in which the Christian can march to in Gods army; in addition, for all of us who have been purchased by the blood of Christ verse 20 sums up in one sentence who we now are in Him, it states: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” I cannot think of a better way to lose myself than to be crucified with Him in order that I may gain my identity in and with Him.

In closing I leave with this final thought; it’s funny how we withdraw and turn from even our closest brothers for fear of what others may think and the greatest tragedy is at times we do this for fear of what other Christians may think.

May Christ Jesus rule and reign in each of our hearts,
Mark

The Senate is investigating deceptive sweepstakes practices.

These companies target the elderly and make them think they will receive a bunch of money, but in reality they never see any of it.

The most popular of these scams is called Social Security.

"When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra."

"Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes - there's just too much fraternizing with the enemy."

If you choke a smurf, what color does it turn?

this one goes out to my neighbor Patti ;-)

Kurt was going out with a nice girl and finally popped the question. "Will you marry me, darling?" he asked.

Lisa smiled coyly and said, "Yes, if you'll buy me a mink."

Kurt thought for a moment and then replied, "Okay, it's a deal, on one condition."

"What is that?" Lisa asked.

"You'll have to clean the cage," Kurt replied.

Dearest friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It is with rare occasion that I find myself departing from the current text of study, in this case the book of Galatians. Today friends I want to share a quick exhortation…. I was driving home from work the other evening and the Lord reminded me of a passage from Luke chapter 24, where two of Jesus’ followers were walking along the road to Emmaus and Jesus came along side of them unrecognized and proceeded to expound the scriptures as they walked along. Once they arrived at the village the two urge Jesus to come and stay with them as it was late and the day was almost gone. Jesus agreed and went in with them and as they sat at the table, Jesus blessed, broke and gave the bread to them; it was then that their eyes were opened and they knew it was Jesus and they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?”  and they got up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem.

Now, what spoke to me as I was pondering this passage the other day was the fact that their hearts burned within them as Jesus was near; as they walked along they had no idea they were talking to the Lord but they knew within them that something was very different about this conversation. The word burn used here means to consume or set on fire; this is the fire that fuels reformation and revival, this is the fire that could not be silenced by the Pharisees when Peter stood before them and said “We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him.” Friends, this is the fire that ought to blaze furiously within us to passionately serve God as we pass from this life to the next. The question I ask myself and pose to you as we travel along the path God has set before us, is our heart being utterly consumed at the mere mention of the name of Jesus? Does our heart burn within us because Jesus is near? Friends, let us not reserve our hearts to smoldering embers and a poof of smoke as the fleeting thought of Jesus barely tickles our frontal lobe.

In Christ Jesus my Lord and Savior,
Mark

Galatians 2:1-10   

Paul‘s first visit to Jerusalem after his conversion on the road to Damascus is found in Galatians 1 where Paul tells us that after three years he went up and visited with Peter for fifteen days. It would be fourteen more years from that visit before Paul would once again return to Jerusalem. It is also believed that it was during the second visit that the apostle brought the offerings from the church in Antioch as described in Acts 11:27-30. So the apostle returns by direction of the Holy Spirit. As communicated in previous studies the Judaizers challenged the very notion of Paul being commissioned by Jesus to be an apostle to the gentiles. Without doubt they would have challenged the fact that Paul was called to come to Jerusalem by the spirit; likely claiming that Paul had actually been called by the apostles in Jerusalem.

Once in Jerusalem the Apostle seeks an audience with those who “were of reputation.” Again, a jab at the Judaizers since they held the original twelve in high regard claiming that they had apostolic approval for their doctrine and Paul did not. Those whom Paul refers to of reputation would have been Peter, James (the brother of Jesus) and John and likely others as well as those “false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage.”
In verse seven the apostle makes it clear to his readers that God is no distinguisher of persons and the apostles to the church of Jerusalem are no greater than he is and he no greater than they; furthermore, they added nothing to his gospel account, rather Paul’s came from a direct encounter with the true and living God.

Before going further I want to talk about verse six for a moment, “But of these who seemed to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me: God accepts no man’s person.)” There is a notion within some Christian circles that ‘some’ are endowed with a greater amount of the Holy Spirit; evidenced by the fact that they have a greater gift or office. This simply isn’t so! The spirit teaches us in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 that no one knows the things of God except the spirit of God and that WE (that means all of us) have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that WE might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. Jesus tells us in John 14:16,17 “I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— “the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” Nowhere do we find Jesus distinguishing between who gets more and who gets less of the spirit. Let us consider another verse from the book of 1st Corinthians Chapter 12 which says: “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.” In fact, I would encourage all to read the entire 12th chapter of 1st Corinthians. Friends, the bottom line is that we are all grafted into the same body, given the same spirit but called to different purposes within the body. Let us not forget that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles (heathen)lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But Jesus said “Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. “And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

So, in verse three we see that Titus came along for the journey as evidence that circumcision was not a prerequisite to Christianity as the Judaizers taught. Paul was certainly interested in how the apostle’s might decide, not desiring to see the ministry efforts to the gentiles wasted because of legalism. Ultimately the apostle’s sided with what had, in all reality, been fore-ordained by God, that gentiles do not need to be bound by rituals and traditions of men in order to be accepted into the kingdom of God. Therefore, the apostle’s refusal to side with the Judaizers solidified the rejection of their doctrine, and further supported the ministry to the gentiles.

So as I was reading these verses over and over I kept returning to verse 4 and I kept asking myself one central question; Why would freedom from the law be a threat to anyone, why would these people or for that matter any people seek to place others into bondage?

I think the foremost answer is power. With all groups in opposition to the true gospel of Jesus Christ; be it the Pharisees and Sadducee’s ,the Judaizers, the Gnostics or today’s cults the common thread is power. They use whatever laws, rules and traditions they have at their disposal, made up or not, in order that the so-called elect might wield their power to bludgeon people into submission and reign over the masses. So, if the truth is discovered that people no longer have to submit under the brutality of such laws, people are going to be abandoning ship left and right and those in power or should we say out of power no longer have a leg to stand on. This has always been an issue with man throughout history who have no use for the true gospel of grace. Man in his carnal desire to promote himself above others in order that he might become his own supreme being will go to astronomical lengths, even the murder of anyone standing in opposition. Throughout history we have seen this occur both in the church and the government using whatever form of laws they so choose.

God never intended it to be that way, the law of Moses was meant to shine a light on the dark hearts of men so that they might realize that any pious attempts at holiness could not be accomplished through it. It would take Jesus Christ through the perfect fulfillment of the law and his blood as the perfect lamb to fill the gap between man and the law. The law could only condemn and it is only by the shed blood of Christ at the cross that has the power to release us from the bonds of condemnation. Romans 8:1 beautifully illuminates this fact, it says, “ There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”

May we all go forward this day walking in the grace and peace of Jesus Christ,
Mark

Good Sunday morning to you folks, I know some of you have been wondering whether I fell off the planet or something. Not Quite! A lot of changes have been occurring lately and God may be opening some really awesome doors in the next few weeks. I don't know though only God does and I am perfectly ok with whatever He wills!

A lot of folks put these neat little fish on the back of their cars and they know it has something to do with Jesus
but don't really know what. I hope that you will enjoy this and perhaps share this with your friends as a ministry opportunity.

Grace and peace in Christ Jesus,
Mark

IXTHUS or (ICHTHUS) is the Greek word for "fish." The fish was chosen as an early Christian symbol because each of the letters in the Greek word represented a belief of the church concerning Jesus.

-The "I" is the first letter in the Greek word for "Jesus."

-"X" (or "CH") is the first letter in the Greek word for "Christ,"

-"TH" is the first letter in the Greek word for "God,"

-"U" is the first letter in the Greek word for "son,"

-"S" is the first letter in the Greek word for "Savior."

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. "

Jim Elliot
Martyr