Freedom: Galatians #2 “It’s Going to Kill You or You Will ... · Freedom.2.Gal.Cassidy.docx Page 2 of 14 The book of Galatians is a little letter that Paul wrote to the churches

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Freedom: Galatians

#2 “It’s Going to Kill You or You Will Die” – Gal. 2:16-21

Dr. Matt Cassidy – 1/11/2015 Good morning, everyone. We are looking at the book of Galatians today.

Before we get going, I want to tell you the top reason that I love this church – this ranks absolutely

first and I don’t know what is second. I have heard so many stories about the power of God’s grace in

people’s lives – but that is not first.

What is first is the breadth of the stories of how God’s grace has changed people’s lives. We have

so many stories of people understanding for the first time that salvation comes through Christ. But also

we have these stories about people applying the grace, the gospel of God, to their personalities and to their

relationships, and the way they think about other people, and the way they think about life. We have little

children and grownups coming in our doors and for the first time the light goes on and they go – Wait a

minute. I can be rightly related to God because of what He has done for me? So, they have a ‘born again’,

a salvation experience. That is half the stories we have around here.

We also have so many stories of people who have come here [I think God leads them here] from

churches or from extremely rigid or moralistic type backgrounds. They have played the game their whole

life but they were shackled. Because we talk about grace and the power of grace transforming and that is

where we put our hope, in grace transforming, after a while, something happens to them and they get it.

We had a baptism that is still a very fond memory to me of a young man, perhaps 25 or early 30s.

He grew up in a really great Bible teaching church. But the aroma of the church was so moralistic and that

was getting also what he was getting 24/7 at home. He grasped the gospel in every aspect of his life.

When he was baptized, he said: I grew up in a good church, a Bible-teaching church, and I knew more

verses than anybody else, and My parents made me to this and that. But I was never free. I always felt sad

or guilty or that I could have been doing more. Now, I understand grace and it has changed the way I

treat my wife, and when we have children, I hope it will change the way I raise them. So, this day, I am

getting baptized into God’s grace.

I love those stories. That is the everlasting joy when a person realizes the power of the gospel in

all of their life and it is revolutionary.


The book of Galatians is a little letter that Paul wrote to the churches in Galatia. The theme is the

gospel. We are going to study this book for the wintertime and it is our ambition that the gospel permeates

our personalities, our temperaments, our relationships, and the way we view our lives.

It is God’s ambition, which I can tell you from the Bible, to make you perfect, or mature, or

complete. The means by which He will make you perfect, mature, and complete is by grace, by a gift –

and the gift is the gospel.

Let’s summarize what we learned last week from Galatians 1 and explain some things that will

help in chapter 2.

What is the gospel? The gospel literally means “good news.”

Grace is the primary word that is used in this book and grace means gift. So we have this icon up

here, which I hope we will all remember, even in old age, that grace means gift. [Icon is 2’ tall wrapped

gift with huge gold bow on top].

What is the gift? The gift is that Jesus Christ writes a check to the Father for the debt that we owe

Him for the cost of our sin. Jesus Christ paid the debt. It is signed right here, dated Good Friday. And on

Resurrection Sunday (Easter), it is stamped in red “Paid in full.”

Review


The check was cashed and it cleared. The gift of the gospel is this gift of grace, this gift of justification.

But the formula for the gospel for the good news is this:

It is Faith alone, in that Gift alone (Grace alone), from Christ alone.

It is Faith alone – or trust only, not actions.

In that grace gift of being made right.

From Jesus Christ alone.

No one else is in the equation – and that is the formula. That is what the gospel is.

1. If you add to the gospel, it does not exist.

When we looked at Galatians, Chapter 1, we found that people like taking that formula but then

prostituting it or ruining it in some way. Early on, we found out that if you add anything to that formula –

what could save your live – now that becomes poisonous because it becomes a gospel of a whole different

kind, Paul says.

If nothing else, it is a definition of the terms:

Grace means gift.

If you pay for the gift, it is not a gift anymore; it is a purchase.

If you pay back the gift, then the gift was not a gift but it was a loan.

Gift means that someone gave it to you and you did not pay for it and you did not pay it back to

the giver. So it is grace alone; this gift alone. It is faith in that gift that it is adequate, from Christ alone.

2. If any man or angel adds to the message of the gospel … If you change the formula, the next

thing we learned last week, if you promote anything – or even an angel from heaven promotes anything

except grace alone, through faith alone, from Christ alone – that one will be accursed. They will spend

eternity with judgment because it becomes the thing that destroys you.

3. This gospel is from God. We also learned that the gospel is from God. Paul did not invent it.

He did not think about it but he discovered it. It came from the outside. We won’t study the historical

record of Paul proving that fact that he did not invent the gospel but he discovered it, because most of

Chapter 2 is Paul going around saying: Here is the gospel that I have discovered. He had it confirmed in

multiple ways. That is the point of those first fifteen verses.


Today we are going to look at the hub, from where all the spokes extend out, which many scholars

believe is Galatians 2:16.

Gal. 2:16 is the thesis of the book of Galatians about the gospel. We can’t go there until we look at

one technical term Paul uses three times. He says the same thing three separate times and that is how

strongly he wants you to grasp this. The word he emphasizes is the word “justify/justification”. Let’s

make sure we understand what that word means before we look at Galatians 2:16.

Justify does not mean forgiveness. That is something else in our experience with Jesus Christ but

justify does not mean forgiveness. Neither does justify mean atonement.

Justify is a forensic term which comes from the judicial system. It is saturated throughout the New

Testament. It means a judge, a person in authority of justice, has declared you innocent, absolutely and

completely guilt free. He has the power and authority to be that judge and he has declared you innocent.

To be justified does not merely mean that you did nothing wrong. It means that you did everything right.

It means you did it all. It means you are perfect.

Here is a great illustration of that. Some of you older people have heard the saying: “Your name

is mud.” That expression came from a historical event. When John Wilkes Booth shot and killed

Abraham Lincoln, Booth was jumping out of the balcony and, ironically, his foot caught on an American

flag; when he fell, he broke his leg. About 4 o’clock in the morning, he went to a doctor’s house, Dr.

Samuel Mudd, who splinted that broken leg and then Booth was off and running again. Well, the

authorities caught Booth, killed him and burned his corpse, which was justice for the moment. But they

wanted to bring to justice every single person Booth had talked with or been associated with and Dr.

Mudd was included in that. Mudd was tried for aiding and abetting a felon and Mudd got a life

imprisonment. He missed the death penalty by one vote. Four years later, the emotions had calmed down

a bit and his attorney went to the President and said: I think we should make this right. So, President

Andrew Johnson gave him a pardon; Mudd was set free and he went back home to live somewhat worry

free. But after he died, his descendants had to live with this pardon, which they resented because a pardon

meant he was forgiven. His family said that he never did anything wrong. As a matter of fact, Dr. Mudd

did what was right. After 150 years, the Mudd family is still working on having Dr. Mudd justified. They

have a letter with a presidential seal from Jimmy Carter who said the man was innocent. They have

another presidential sealed letter from Ronald Reagan, which said that he believed Mudd was innocent.

“Justify”


But those presidents are not judges and so they do not have the authority or power to do anything but

pardon Dr. Mudd. His family does not want a pardon; they want Dr. Mudd declared justified.

When you are justified, it says that not only did you not do any wrong, but you did what was right.

Dr. Samuel Mudd had sworn to the Hippocratic Oath which said that if anyone ever needed medical

attention, he would give it to them, which is what he did. He did what he had sworn he would do; so, he

was not doing wrong, but he did what he had sworn to do. That is what justified means.

In this Galatians passage, when you see this word justify used three times and each of the three

times, as it escalates, that is what we get with this gift of the gospel.

There is no vagueness here. This will blow the clouds away.

Gal. 2:16 … know that A PERSON is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in

Jesus Christ.

Know that a person, just think of any person, is not justified [declared innocent] by the works of the law,

but by faith in Jesus Christ.

So WE, TOO, [Paul, Jews, even apostles], have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may

be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law,

because by the works of the law NO ONE will be justified.

Did I leave anyone out? There is “a person”, “we too” (Jews), and now “no one” (everyone), can be

justified by the works of the Law.

There it is; the declaration of innocence is this gift. That is what this gift means. When you receive

the gospel, when you trust that is payment in full, what you get is this statement from the high and

mighty, righteous Judge, God the Father, and He looks at you and says: Not only have you done nothing

wrong, you have done everything right. That comes not from works but from this gift and trusting that gift

is adequate. Do you trust that is the way that I see you?

Tertullian, one of the early church fathers, said about the doctrine of justification:

“As Jesus Christ was crucified between two thieves, so the gospel of justification is always

justified between two opposite errors.”

When people try to understand that it is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ – alone, they say “Hmm.”

Most people in the world do not grasp it. Most people in churches will fall to one side or the other on this.

Just like Tertullian said – they will go to one extreme that says, “Okay, we agree to the gospel but I think

we should add some works to that. I need to keep doing good so I can earn the gift or pay the gift back.”

Galatians 2:16


They add rules and control because technically they do not think this gospel will do; it is not enough. That

is the thief on one side of Jesus on the cross, legalism.

The other thief on the other extreme is when grace is made cheap. So, if I am declared innocent,

regardless of the way I act, that sounds like a blank check to me.” We call that license. That looks like

unconditional love gives me license to do whatever I want.

That is the way people respond to this. While the ink is still drying on verse 16, Paul takes the rest

of the chapter to make sure he covers both of these two errors – both of these “thieves.” I would like to

belabor the point because I would say most of us in this room, in our weak moments when we don’t

meditate what the gospel power is, we will gravitate to one extreme or the other.

To illustrate, I brought this exercise bicycle here, which will represent legalism or moralism. Some

early Christians would say: We get the gift [of salvation] but then I will go back and do the Old

Testament rituals and laws so that God will continue to like me and then I will be justified. – Most of that

will not apply to people here. But where we don’t go to Old Testament rituals and rules, we do add our

new rules. We add more and more to this. The reason I wanted this exercise bike up here is because when

you sit on it and you pedal, you go no where. I want you to remember, this is a metaphor for your

justification efforts here. Where are you going, Matt? Nowhere. Where are you going now? Nowhere

faster.

Churches and Christian organizations have this atmosphere, this barometric pressure, this feeling

that: That is good and all for other churches and organizations – but us? What is harder for other

churches is just about right for us. That is what we normally do. --- Then they emphasize usually

something a number of people are good at – good things: Bible study, Bible memory, evangelism, some

sort of cause or sacrifice. Again, there is this feeling that they are at a different level now as Christians.

Why do they function this way? One reason is pride. If you can pedal faster than anyone else,

you want that to become the standard. You want other people to know that you pedal faster than most.

And you hang around other people who pedal faster than most. Then you say: Those others cannot pedal

as fast as I do.

Another reason is control and fear. We like the rules and the laws because it keeps people in their

place – because we are afraid of what would happen if we broke out of the rules a bit. The rules are not

God-made.

Legalism, one thief/extreme error


Another reason is that it is sometimes simpler. If there is a cause/effect to every one of your life

problems, you don’t have to pray and ask God, and trust and be afraid. In parenting, it happens about

every 20 years. Someone comes out with a new style of parenting based on this. They will take really

good material. Bill Gothard did it in the 1980s and 90s. Then “Growing Kids God’s Way” did it in the

2000s. They will take Bible principles and make them hard laws. They attract people who love discipline

and they are going to control their kids so the parents will know every outcome. There is a page or chapter

on every issue. If you do ‘this’, then you will get ‘that’. Again, there is power involved, pride involved,

there is control involved. You don’t need to know your child. You don’t need to pray and trust God for

this outcome. You end up with a crushed soul, always looking over his shoulder, trying to get his mom or

dad’s approval.

In relationships, if you are the type of person who loves discipline, you evaluate other people by

how fast they can pedal in your area of expertise, usually. You grade people, not by what they have done,

but what they have not done. They have not done enough, have they? So, you probably have a history of

relationships where you get kind of close, have some fun together, but then they get tired of you and your

standards. You are rarely grateful because gratitude assumes you would not expect anything but if you are

one of these rule keepers, you expect a lot from others. So you do not celebrate; you are not grateful when

people help you or give things to you. So legalists, generally, have a history of strained or ruined

relationships, in marriage or whatever.

The problem with legalism is at least three-fold:

1. If you are into grace + works, or just works alone, you will never know, will you, if you are

rightly related to God because “Have you done enough today?” So you usually live fatigued

intellectually or emotionally, and sometimes physically because you are running around. Why

are you always running around? – Because I need the approval of other people or of God.

2. Legalism does not work, mentioned three times in Gal. 2:16, because you cannot be justified

by works. By works you cannot be justified. There is no justification in works. You cannot

change a heart through the Law. You can change conduct and make a resentful heart.

3. The third reason legalism is a problem and this one is serious is that exercise bike (work

harder), creates contempt for grace (for the gift). This law/moralism structure says: That (gift)

is not enough. The gift is the death of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son. So, Paul says

logically in the last sentence (and we will spend more time on this in future weeks), verse 21

Gal. 2:21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through

the law, Christ died for nothing!


That is simple Algebra. If we could achieve righteousness or justification through works, then

Jesus did not need to die. While all that is true, could you stop and think through what that says about

God? What did you just say about God if you have this value system (grace + works)? You just said: God

would send His only Son to experience Friday (the death) and it was not necessary. – Can you image that

conversation?

Jesus: I am back, Father.

Father God: Thanks for doing all that. You didn’t need to. It wasn’t necessary.

Jesus: Wait. What?

This gift of Christ’s payment for our sin is the only way to salvation because it is the only way that makes

sense. If this (works) is not necessary, and God did this to His only Son, how do you think He will treat

you? The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ has to be the only way because it is the only way that

makes sense – that a loving God would send His only Son to do it. If you bring that (works) into the

equation, you are saying that the nature of God is so flippant with stuff that He will give His Son away,

and He does not have to. – That is contempt to the power and the beauty and the depth of that gift

(salvation by faith alone in Christ alone). Be afraid.

So, legalism is the thief on one side of Jesus Christ on the cross.

The other thief is license. Right after Gal. 2:16 where Paul says: you have to receive this gift by

faith alone, by faith alone can you be justified, justification only comes through faith. Verse 16 rolls out

very nicely. Then verse 17:

Gal. 2:17 “But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ … doesn’t that mean that Christ

promotes sin? Absolutely not!”

One of the almost immediate responses to “by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone” is:

So, I can do whatever I want. –

That is the way I look at this little gift box [icon of palm-sized, wrapped gift with tiny bow]. That

is little Jesus, a pocket form of Jesus. While works takes the salvation gift lightly, this one, license, makes

light of the gift.

In churches and Christian organizations that hold to this extreme, the atmosphere is such that you

cannot tell the Christians from the non-Christians. That believer in license would pull Jesus out of their

pocket, like He is a genie and use Him. Yeah, Jesus, forgive me. My bad. You got that?

The gift of salvation is a VISA card. Put your sin on His tab. – People think they can bluff God.

License, one thief/one extreme error


The problem with this extreme of license is there is not a single verse in the Bible that can give

you confidence that you are even a believer. You might be. But you cannot find a passage in the Bible

that, if you live a life that is not any different and you don’t have a conscience with the Spirit of God

talking to you about this conduct, there is nothing in the Bible that would tell you that you are absolutely

the child of God.

For the legalist, where the result is that you never know if you have done enough --- on this side of

license, it also says: You will never know if you are saved. You cannot know because these are artificial

expressions of justification.

The real gospel of God solves this problem for us. It is the real thing. It is heavy. It is dense. It is

infectious. It is the sap that runs through your soul and permeates every aspect of your life. If you let

grace, the gift of justification, get into every aspect of your soul, it will change your soul. It is the marrow

that runs through your personality and can make it well. It is yeast that embeds in your life history and

changes the way you can look at what you have been through and the things you have suffered. It has that

kind of power. It is not just for salvation but it is for life.

So, how do you get that (gift) in here (into yourself)? How do you receive it to make you whole,

complete and perfect? That is what Paul talks about in the next few verses.

The problem is that you are going to need to die – a couple of times – and it won’t be pretty. But

on the other hand, know this: If you don’t die --- you will be killed. So there is that. But you have to die or

you cannot have this gift. That is what Paul is talking about.

Paul says the first thing you have to die to is [works] (gesturing to bike). You have to die to this

law. It could be your own temperament or the way you were raised. It could be the teaching of the church

you grew up in. The way you keep score over here with your silly little bike, you have to die to this,

because …

Gal. 2:19 “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.”

You cannot live for God until you die to the law. The idea here is that you are pedaling and you think this

counts? Do you know what he is telling you? You don’t know the law. You need to ride this thing until

you die on this thing because this was built to kill you. You cannot fulfill what this demands of you. So

you keep trying and you keep trying and when you are dead of this, would you just die to this thing? Get

that mother-in-law or that Catholic nun out of your head or your own silly standards, thinking that you

could do something that could please God. You have to die to that. Just let it die.

How do you receive gospel grace?


Then you have to die again. That is the easy death (works) and you want to die to that anyway.

The second death is 2:20 and it is dying to your own stuff.

Gal. 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me…

Let’s work this metaphor so we can better understand it in our soul and spirit.

This is the gift, the grace of God, the justification we received. Let me say, this gift is so big and

so heavy and so dense that I cannot pick it up and enjoy it until I put everything down that is in my hands.

In other words, I have to let go of all of my baggage to be able to lift this gift.

Another metaphor – I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me

… the only way He can live in me is if I vacate the building first. You have to crucify all this stuff:

Your ego, crucify the ego. You would be so free to live in Christ if you did not have that to drag

around.

Your reputation that you care so much about, there are nails for that reputation.

Your ambitions – let them just bleed out.

Your fears – suffocate them to death.

Your constant desire and addiction to attention – let it starve.

It is fried, friends. It is this ugly cursed damned pride and that is what has to die. If you want Christ to live

in you, if you want this gift to translate into your personality and your temperament and your history and

your life and your value system, you have to get rid of this stuff.

We will spend in a few minutes time to talk to God about this. You cannot have the garbage and

also Christ Jesus live in you. You have to die to that legal system rattling around in your values. Then you

have to die to all the junk you carry around with you. I will show you how this works in just a minute.

Then you get to live. So you will love the living part – but you have to die a couple of times.

In the second part of verse 20:

Gal. 2:20b The life I now live in the body (I have some years left in this thing), I live by

faith in the Son of God, who LOVED ME and GAVE HIMSELF up for me.

The real grace, the real love, the real gospel is focusing so much on the fact that He loved me and He gave

Himself up for me. He loved me. The most important person in the Universe loved me and gave Himself

up for me.

What does this look like?

I worry all the time. I am anxious all the time. So I need to stop being so anxious. I am going to

look into why I am so anxious.


You say: I am so vain and I am always thinking about how I look and what people think of how I

look.

I am always fearful.

I am bitter all the time and I need to quit being bitter.

I am angry and I resent what others have and I don’t have.

What is the problem? Could we stop talking about you – all the time? I am bitter; I need to stop being

bitter. I am anxious; I need to stop being anxious.

I am dead. Why are we talking about the dead guy? The dead guy got crucified with Christ and he

no longer lives. “The life I live now in the flesh, I am focusing on the glorious truth that He loved me and

He gave himself up for me.” – The focus is not on me or my worry.

I need to stop worrying. -- Why would I worry? He said He would never leave me.

I am bitter. I resent other people’s stuff – I have everything in Him.

I am always thinking about how to get attention – Why do you care? You are focusing on this.

That is why we were singing and in the chorus it kept looping:

I am Yours; You are mine. [“Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)”]

Okay, let’s sing it again.

I am Yours; You are mine.

We are going to keep singing this until we stop thinking about all the things we are or we are not –

because we are dead. Everybody has eaten and gone home from this funeral and it is over. Let’s talk about

this – gift of salvation in Jesus Christ.

There is a lovely postcard that I have which has changed the way I look at life. It depicts this

woman saying to her husband: “Whenever I am with you, I forget about me.” – Think about the depth of

love that takes. “Whenever I am with you, I forget about myself.” That is the power of the gospel.

Whenever I focus on this gospel, I forget about myself. That is how you apply it to the various

aspects of your life.

How does that look as a parent? You cannot put things into boxes.

So your child messes up and it costs a lot of money and it was done in front of a lot of people and

it embarrasses you. Hell has no fury like a parent embarrassed.

So over here in the legalist system: “We have rules and you violated the rules. Now I am going to

let you know that you don’t make mom or dad look bad.” Then you turn to that page and follow the rule.


Over here in the license system, cheap grace: “Oh, you know what son? I kind of did something

like that when I was your age. I guess you are just a chip off the old block. I will let it go. I will just

forgive you. Who is the cool dad? Who is the cool dad?”

But if you have grace in your soul and you live this thing out, you don’t care about what your

child did. It is not punishment for what they did. You are concerned about what they will do in the future.

So you are trying to stop a re-commitment of this foible in the future. So, it could be harsher than over

here in the legalistic system. The book might say: You owe us $5 and a couple of hours of time out. – But

you know the soul of that child and you have enjoyed the uniqueness of this God-given gift. You say: It is

going to take more than the law because we love him and we don’t want him to do this again. We don’t

want him to be a repeat offender. See, the law is not adequate to love a child appropriately.

Or, again, because of the offense, it might look like license because the offense itself, the child has

regretted it and he is remorseful and he does not ever want to do it again. He won’t do it again. You see

how love has no boundaries?

In grace-filled relationships, later in Galatians, Paul says – don’t let the gift give you a license but

instead humbly love one another. The whole Law can be summarized in this saying: Love your neighbor

as yourself.” That is not cheap. It is short but it is hard to love one another, to love others as you love

yourself.

Look at how generosity looks. This person over in legalism will look in the Bible and do exactly

what it says. Let’s say it is giving 10% so I will give you 10% and hopefully people will find out about it.

People on the license side: Giving? That is going to cost something. It is grace – so I will let

others pay those bills. Awesome. Who is the cool dad?

But what happens when the generosity of this gift gets inside of your soul? Even if you are a

tightwad little Scrooge, it transforms your heart which grows three times that day, and you look for

opportunities to give because you know it is better to give than to receive. Why? Because you have been

transformed. The grace transformed your soul.

See how there aren’t rules for the most part. It is: What does God call you to do? Who does He

call you to be?

Here is a great illustration. St. Augustine, before being a Christian, he had a live-in girlfriend for

years. They were in love and enjoyed each other’s company. Later on, he becomes a follower of Jesus

Christ and understands the power of the gospel in every aspect of his life. His sensuality was one of the

things that was crucified. Augustine ran into his ex-girlfriend at a social engagement. She came up to him

and said, “Augustine, how are you?” He said: “I am well and you look great. Good to see you. I need to


leave.” No innuendos, no eyebrows up or down. He starts walking away and she thinks he has forgotten

who she is. She said: “Augustine, it is I.” He turned to her and said, “Yes, I know, but it is not I.” --- She

mistook his body for a soul but now his soul is different. That lust-filled, selfish, pleasure-happy

Augustine had been crucified. He was now living by faith and just enjoying the power of the gospel.

How do you apply this? Here are three ways to do it. If you think there are three ways to do it, you

have not killed that [works] yet. I wish it were that easy, three steps. You don’t need to do more loving

things; you need to be more loving. You don’t need to do more gracious things or generous things or

compassionate things; you need to be more generous and compassionate. That is something different.

For our application time, I thought we would quietly have time with the Spirit of God to have a

funeral. Let’s kill some things; let’s kill you. The way he talked about it, you had to die to works. Then

let’s die to the stuff we are holding on to that is tying us down. We cannot pick up the weight, the density

of this grace, this gift, because we are so encumbered by our pride. Let’s pray that and see if we can’t be

freed.

For the love of God, for God’s sake, for the sake of the power of the gospel, through the law, I died to the

law. Could you please consider killing this little squirrel cage you have been in your whole life? Don’t

you see that it is out to kill you? Just kill it. Whatever that voice is rattling around in your head, if it is a

person or an atmosphere or your own silly temperament, kill it. It won’t work and it is contemptuous

toward the power of the gift of God.

Lord, I am sorry that I keep trying to stay busy or judge people, how that has ruined so many lives

around me and hurt so many people deeply because I live by this standard that everybody else has to live

by. Or, I clear my throat and my kids cower. Lord, help me kill this law. Through this law, I want to die to

this law.

While we are at the funeral, I want to be crucified with Christ. I don’t want to live any more. I

want You to live in me. So, crucify this ego which has a mirror in front of it all the time. My carefully

guarded protected reputation, hammer some nails into it. My selfish ambition, let it bleed out; I want to

see that blood. My addiction to attention, let’s suffocate that. Starve my fears. This cursed pride. Dear

God, take this from me; kill this thing in me so that I could be free and light and unencumbered.

Application


The life I now live, Lord, in this body, in these years left, I want to live by faith in your Son Jesus

Christ. He loved me and He gave himself for me. Make that everything for me. Let that be the primary

motivation for how I think and feel and evaluate life. Let it be me - that He loved me and He gave

himself for me.

Lord, you make beautiful things out of dirt. You took clay once and You turned it into the image

of God. You are still doing that. Take this dust and make something beautiful out of it. In Jesus’ name we

all pray. Amen

Freedom: Galatians #2 “It’s Going to Kill You or You Will ... · Freedom.2.Gal.Cassidy.docx Page 2 of 14 The book of Galatians is a little letter that Paul wrote to the churches

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