SCRIPTURE “Christ has liberated us to be free. Stand firm then and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1 (HCSB)

QUOTE: “Your ability to rationalize your own bad deeds makes you believe that the whole world is as amoral as you are.”—-Douglas Copland 

NOTE:

We should not blame God for our misfortunes when we’ve caused these problems through our flagrant disobedience. As those who profess to follow Jesus Christ, we can become so brainwashed by the world’s system that we may not even realize we’re living double lives and violating the will of God. Like Gideon, we have selective memories. We remember that the “perfect will of God” is “good,” but we forget what can happen when we allow our lives to be “conformed to this age” (Romans 12:1-2). Sin will always lead us into slavery, even as Christians.

There is no oppression so horrible as being enslaved by evil desires that plague our souls (Galatians 5:19-21). The good news is that there is freedom when we confess our sins and manifest the “fruit of the Spirit” in all of our relationships (Galatians 5:22-23). This is the essence of Paul’s exhortation to the Galatians:

ILLUSTRATION:

Gideon was terribly blinded to God’s displeasure with Israel’s horrible sins. He remembered the stories of God’s miraculous deliverance from Egypt, but he seemed totally naïve regarding the evil that permeated even his own home (v. 25). Gideon’s naïveté demonstrates how subtle evil can be.

He was blaming God for abandoning Israel and delivering them into the hands of the Midianites without realizing that the Israelites had brought this judgment on themselves. They were responsible for the oppression, not God!

REFLECTION:

What precautions can we take to avoid blaming God for the pain we are going through?

TWO YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN: Catch-up Day, Psalm 52