This morning, I am reading in Galatians 1 as Paul is talking about a false gospel being preached. A gospel that pleases man and not God.

He talks about his former ways of persecuting the church because of his Judaism beliefs at the time. He was zealous in the traditions of His fathers, man-made doctrines that confirmed his bias in persecuting the Christians.

Only through the grace of God did he turn from his ways that did not please God, and change direction. It wasn’t because he wrestled with what he was doing, had internal conflict, or questioned whether what he was doing was right or wrong. It was only because he had an encounter with God that stopped him in his tracks. It was only in God showing him that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh that he had a “turning point.”

This morning ,I am asking, where is it that I believe I am serving God in my beliefs, when in fact I am not?

Where am I doing things in my ways, and not his?

Where am I following in the footsteps of religious traditions instead of the word of God in seeking His will, and not my own?

Where am I seeking righteousness through law, works, or deeds…and not faith?

I cannot be transformed, regenerated, or redeemed by Jesus Christ if I am seeking it to look my way, how I want, in my flesh.

I am the only one standing in the way of the Holy Spirit doing a good work in me, because I believe it needs to look a certain way according to the men before me, and not through the word of God.

This is not to say I don’t have good men around me mentoring me in the ways of God, rather, it’s knowing the truth that all men’s understandings of God are tainted by their flesh, and the final authority is in the relationship with Jesus Christ through His word.