Previously, when you did not know God, you served those who by nature are not gods. But now, after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how do you turn again to the weak and beggarly elemental forces to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid for you, lest I have worked for you in vain. Galatians 4:8-11
Before hearing and believing the gospel of forgiveness and life eternal through faith in Christ Jesus, people serve false gods of their own imagination through earthly rituals and practices such as the observing of certain days, certain seasons, certain foods, and other religious rites. Why would we, after receiving through faith in Christ and His cross pardon and forgiveness and the promise of eternal life, go back to trying to serve God with such weak and elemental practices? To do so is to lose the true faith and God’s blessings in Christ.
Grant that I trust in You alone, O Christ, and not trust in religious works and rites for my salvation. Amen
And because you are sons, God has sent forth into our hearts the Spirit of His Son, crying, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a servant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Galatians 4:6-7
As children of God through faith in Jesus Christ and being baptized in His name, God gives to us His Holy Spirit, who creates faith in our hearts and moves us to trust that God indeed accepts us as His own dear children. The Holy Spirit moves us to address God as our dear Father and assures us that, as God’s sons, we have an eternal inheritance awaiting us in heaven through faith in Christ Jesus.
I thank You, dear Father, for accepting me as your dear child and granting to me Your Holy Spirit and an eternal inheritance in heaven for Jesus’ sake. In His name, I pray. Amen.
But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born from a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. Galatians 4:4-5
Though the law instructed us and revealed our utter sinfulness and need for a Savior, now that God has fulfilled His ancient promise to send that Savior — His own dear Son, born of the Virgin Mary, to fulfill the law for us and then to redeem us from the curse of the law by dying in our stead that we might be adopted as God’s own children through faith in Christ — we do not go back under the law but hold fast in faith to Christ Jesus, our Savior.
Thank You, O gracious God, for sending Your Son to redeem me from the curse and condemnation of Your holy law. Grant that I hold fast to Christ Jesus in faith that I may be Your child. Amen.
For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He will stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God, whom I will see for myself, and my eyes will behold, and not another. Job 19:25-27
With ancient Job, those who yet today place their hope and confidence in the atoning sacrifice of Christ Jesus upon the cross receive by faith God’s pardon and forgiveness and the certain hope of the resurrection and eternal life with Christ in His eternal kingdom. Though we die and our bodies decay in the grave, yet on the last day we will see with our own eyes our risen Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ!
O crucified and risen Savior, raise me up from death to life and grant to me a place in Your eternal kingdom, for the sake of Your death for my sins and Your glorious resurrection. Amen.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, and there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Galatians 3:28-29
While often misapplied by those seeking to justify women in the public ministry, this word of God teaches that all who trust in Christ Jesus for pardon and are baptized in His name, whether male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free, are a part of the one body of Christ, members of the holy catholic (universal) church. And those who trust in Christ are the promised offspring of Abraham and will inherit the blessing promised to Abraham — a place in Christ’s eternal kingdom!
Grant that I trust in You, O Christ, that I might be a part of Your church and kingdom and inherit the everlasting joys of heaven. Amen.