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Galatians 1:6-9

6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different Gospel, 7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the Gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other Gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.

Recently, I read a devotional that was based on the above scripture. This looked at how the Galatian church was being misinformed by other leaders and persuaded by other gospels; therefore they moved away from Paul’s teaching. When Paul heard of this, he was astonished at how quickly they had gotten off track. The writer of the devotional stated that, most Christians get off track because in an effort to get closer to Jesus they focus on their emotional experience of Him and not the sacrifice or his words. Without His truth ringing in their heads, they are bound to get off track.

This got me thinking about how emotion played a vital role in the way I viewed Christianity and worship. For me as a young man growing up in the church, I always looked at it as being boring, old-fashion and rigid. It was the same routine every Saturday. What I looked forward to the most were breaks in service to congregate with my friends. To me, the church I attended did not cater to the youth- this could explain why most of us left in our teenage years.

Since I have gotten older, I have come to realized that the problem was not the church but the fact that none of us, youths, knew Jesus back then. Furthermore, we did not strive to attain a level of intimacy with Him. An emotional high was the objective, “If it feels good, do it,” therefore we stopped because it was not fun. This is the motto that most of us live by today; why do it, if you feel forced, if you only feel obligated to, if you do not thoroughly enjoy it?

Some persons may say, “I do enjoy Christianity,” but if they should be honest with themselves, they only enjoy certain aspects. They avoid going to church early or staying late to avoid a part of the worship, they don’t read 1 Chronicles to hear about who begat who and who is the son of who. Get the picture!

So as to not bore you any longer, the writer’s conclusion was, to get on track and stay on track one has to begin by getting to know Jesus first. The teachings and facts discovered, through this process, will make the difference whether you want to get closer to Him, or not. Should you not have this foundation then you will easily turn away from Christ to other gospels- whether this be the world or another religion. And I could not agree more.

What do you think?

P.S. this does not absolve the church from the fact that they need to take the experience, thoughts and ideas of the youths, in their congregation, into consideration in planning their activities.

Thought: “To stay on track, let God guide your thinking.”

Damion This article was written by Damion and added 1 year, 8 months ago to Perspective-only for thinkers.
Damion says... Be proactive, Begin with the end in mind, Put first things first, Think Win/Win, Seek first to understand-then be understood-, Synergize, and always take time out to Sharpen the saw..