2 Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.
Most of us reading this blog were not brought up in a Muslim culture. Our way of thinking about god was not shaped by that system of rules and obligations. As an example we don’t feel bound to ritualized prayer five times every day as a way to submit to god’s will. And if we miss one of those prayer sessions, we must somehow make up for it later in life. So if a Muslim becomes a Jesus-follower they experience a freedom from those old obligations as a way to show their love for God. But if after living in this new freedom they choose in their thinking to feel bound to keep the old five pillars of Islam as a necessary means in their pursuit of God, they fall into the old Jesus-Plus trap. And Jesus always works a solo act! As soon as we think we play a leading part in our salvation, Jesus politely exits stage left. Salvation is either the work of Jesus, or not His work. It is never His work plus anything. That was what Paul was bumping into in the Galatian church. Some were trying to add Jewish practices to the simple Jesus-follower life. Paul tells us, and for good reason, that if we try to add anything to what Jesus did for us, then what Jesus did for us loses its value completely. If we think we must pray to the saints to get God to hear our prayers, we are missing Jesus. If we feel we must send money to get a prayer cloth so God will heal our loved one, we have missed it. If we think some new DVD teaching series holds the missing key to our relationship with God, then we are deceived. The missing key is simply spending time in the presence of Jesus, reading and meditating on His Word, making our relationship with Him more important than new living room furniture. But because we get uncomfortable with stillness and quietness in our busy lives, we don’t take time to cultivate our intimate relationship with God. Instead, we keep looking for drive-thru, microwavable spirituality that by its nature can never satisfy. Ask any successfully married couple how they are successful. Without exception they will tell you it is about spending time together, connecting and reconnecting with each other’s worlds. My question today is this: what is standing in the way of you having a deeper relationship with God? Is it worth missing eternity?
The Arnold Journey 