Raise the Bar
Readings:
Genesis 41:46–42:5
Galatians 4:8–20
Psalm 44
In our culture, it is relatively easy to acquire your Christian credentials. All it takes for most people—even believers—to consider you a Christian is for you to be baptized, to express intellectual belief in a particular set of doctrines, or in some cases, to simply show up at the appointed time each week to sit in a pew and perhaps pay your tithes. In other words, we have significantly lowered the bar of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.
In today’s passage, Paul urgently pleads with the church at Galatia to understand that being a Christian is not about following a set of external expectations, but about knowing God and being known by him. It is about being transformed by the Holy Spirit so that we become more truly human, more like what God had in mind when he created the human race. Paul compares his urgency for the Galatian Christians to embrace true faith to that of a mother in childbirth, saying he will not experience relief “until Christ is formed in you” (Gal. 4:19; esv).
The Bible actually sets the bar of discipleship very high, so high we can’t reach it in our own power. Following Jesus requires more than the minimal commitment of church attendance, or intellectual belief, or participation in church sacraments. It is to allow the Spirit to work in our lives so that the very life of Christ is formed within us and brought to maturity.
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