Sunday, February 16, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Galatians 4-5
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 20
Key Verse
Galatians 4:29 — “But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.”
Devotional Thought
Paul writes to the churches of Galatia with the anguish of a father, not the cool distance of a scholar. False teachers had crept in behind him, insisting that Gentile believers must take up circumcision and keep the ceremonial law to be truly saved. Paul answers with a family portrait. He reaches back to Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael, and Isaac, and he tells the Galatians plainly who they are: not children of the bondwoman but of the free. In Christ, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that slaves might become sons and sons might become heirs. The Spirit Himself cries “Abba, Father” within them. That word Abba is a child’s word, the sound of a little one reaching up for a father’s hand.
And yet these same children were turning back to “weak and beggarly elements,” observing days and months and years as though their standing before God hung on a calendar. Paul is bewildered: “Where is then the blessedness ye spake of?” They had once loved him so dearly they would have plucked out their own eyes for him. Now they treated him as an enemy for telling them the truth. So he labors in birth again until Christ be formed in them.
The fifth chapter turns this doctrine into daily life. “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.” Liberty, yes, but not license. The freedom of the gospel is not a release to bite and devour one another; it is a call to serve one another by love. Paul sets the works of the flesh against the fruit of the Spirit like two harvests in the same field, and he names them: adultery, wrath, strife, envyings on one side; love, joy, peace, longsuffering on the other. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Which harvest is ripening in us?
This February Sunday, in the plain gray of late winter, we know something of both. The flesh is not yet crucified in us as it ought to be, and we are tempted either to earn our standing by rule-keeping or to squander grace by careless living. Psalm 20 sings the counter-song: “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.” Our trust is not in our own observance, nor in the strength of any earthly power, but in the name of the One who has already redeemed us and adopted us as His own.
Reflection
- Where in your life are you still living like a servant rather than a son or daughter — trying to earn what God has already freely given you in Christ?
- Which harvest is more evident in your daily words and habits this week: the works of the flesh or the fruit of the Spirit?
Prayer
Father, we come to You as children, not slaves, because Your Son was born under the law to redeem us and Your Spirit cries “Abba” within our hearts. Forgive us for turning back to bondage, for measuring ourselves by days and rules and the approval of others rather than by Your free grace. Teach us to stand fast in the liberty Christ has won, and by love to serve one another. Let Your Spirit crucify in us the works of the flesh and grow in us love, joy, peace, and longsuffering, until Christ be formed in us. In the day of trouble, defend us, and let us remember Your name above every chariot and horse. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 20:1 — “The LORD hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee;”