Faithbase

Hey folks, we have been looking at Galatians 5 25, keeping in step with the Spirit, and kind of pulling back, providing context on this verse. Well, I want to provide some clarity on something I said yesterday. If you're confused, you can go back and watch it, but essentially, you might have heard me say, you can either pull up your bootstraps and try really hard to please God, or you can allow the Spirit to lead you. Which is true, but what I don't want you to hear is that following the Spirit doesn't require effort. Dallas Willard has this incredible quote that I love, and I use it often, because I think we can forget this truth. Dallas Willard says, Grace is not opposed to a response, to a faithful response. In fact, what Paul says at one point in Galatians 5, I believe it's verse 7, is he says what matters is faith in Jesus expressing itself through love. Well, that's gonna take some work. Jesus, he says, following me is like trying to find the narrow door, or it's trying to get on the narrow path. Many will search for it, but few will find it. This is gonna require effort on our part. The question is, how do we go about this effort? So, one of Jesus's biggest criticisms of the Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day, was that, not that they try hard, tried hard. In fact, he applauded their efforts. He said, you should do these things, but you also neglected these other things that were really important. We won't get into that, but he's saying, really essentially, that they were hypocrites. They were saying one thing and doing another, or they would say they were following the law, but they're not following the whole law, just the parts that they wanted to, or the parts that were easy for them. Jesus did not criticize them for working hard. The question is, how do we follow the Spirit, allow the Spirit to lead us, and put some effort into it? And that is a part of what this whole thing is about, is trying to figure that out, right? Part of what, one of the reasons I love this idea about keeping in step with the Spirit is because it's not that the Holy Spirit tells us, put your left foot here, and put your right foot here, and tells us every little part of our day about what we should do. In fact, most of the time, God doesn't do that. It's very rare, but more often, he says, look, over here, over here, there are no laws against these things. Avoid all of these things. Run away as fast as you can. But over here, look, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self-control, all of these things, there is no law against them. Here you are free, and we'll talk more about freedom in the upcoming days, but I just want to bring some clarity to that. I pray that as you sit with us in prayer, that God would reveal your own heart and life, and bless you, and challenge you as you are learning to walk in the Spirit. God bless you, friends.