Ephesians 1:1-3

Ephesians 1:1-3 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. These verses are chocked full of interesting things. First, Paul reminds us that this whole apostle thing was not his idea, it was God’s. God is the One Who called Paul to be an apostle, he didn’t choose it for himself. Next we see that all of the Christians are called saints. Saints are not selected by a pope or a group of cardinals, all of us Christians are saints. How does Saint Willem sound? Or Saint Mary Kate or Saint Sophie? Or how about Saint Marmie? Ha, ha! That’s a good one! And thirdly, Paul reminds us that God has given us His wonderful grace and peace. Once we have made peace with God, at the same time we are granted His wonderful grace. Grace is God’s undeserved favor. God loves us because He chooses to love us, not because we are worthy of His love. How wonderful! And how did we receive God’s grace? Through the death, burial, and resurrection of His own dear Son, Jesus Christ. Do you remember the GRACE acrostic? God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. We have God’s grace guaranteed in heaven because of Jesus. What a wonderful thought. I am thrilled at the blessed hope of heaven! Are you?!

Galatians 6:18

Galatians 6:18 Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. This is one of the Apostle Paul’s benedictions. A benediction is like the closing prayer in church. It is the final word. And Paul’s final word was about The grace of Jesus Christ. Grace is God giving us something that we don’t deserve. And Here Paul is talking about our salvation and our membership in God’s forever family. We don’t deserve God’s goodness, but we will take it! We will take God’s goodness and thank Him for it! Isn’t it wonderful that God gives us the free gift of salvation? And just like Paul’s last word of his benediction, we can say with him, “Amen!”

Galatians 6:10

Galatians 6:10  As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith. We are saved by faith alone. But, after we are saved, God expects us to be filled with good works. We are not saved by works, but we are saved unto good works. Christians should be the best neighbors and the best citizens, and the best friends. We should be great examples for our Lord Jesus Christ. And our verse reminds us that we should be good to everyone, but especially to our Christian brothers and sisters. In Titus 3:8, Paul tells his young preacher boy, Titus, that he should maintain good works. That word maintain is interesting. We maintain our car by changing the oil and checking the tires. We maintain our house by repairing the roof. Maintain means to keep it up, to work on it. And that is what we should do with our Christian friends and our good works. We should keep up our relationships and work at being a good friend. We should do good things for our good friends in order to maintain our friendship. There is that word maintain again. We should work at being a good Christina and being a good friend. Remember yesterday? In order to have friends, you must be _____. That’s right you must be a good friend. So work at being a good friend today. Do something good for your Christian friend.

Galatians 6:7-9

Galatians 6:7-9 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. Our verses talk about the laws of the harvest and how they relate to spiritual things. There are three laws: first, you reap what you sow. If you plant beans, what do you reap? Right beans. If you plant corn, what do you reap? Right corn. If you plant friendliness, what do you reap? Right friendliness. If you plant happiness, what do you reap? Right happiness. The second law of the harvest says that you reap after you sow. You have to plant the seed first and then wait. later the plant will sprout up and grow and produce fruit. So, if you want to have friends, what does this second law say you must do? You must be friendly first – for a while – and then you will have friends. Ant the third law of the harvest is that you reap more than you sow. Farmers put one seed in the ground and the new plant grows and has several ears of corn on it with hundreds of seeds on each ear. One seed produces hundreds of other seeds. And so it is with what we sow. If we sow good things, we will reap many, many more good things. But if we sow wicked things, we will reap many, many more wicked things. And don't forget, the law of the harvest is a law. It will happen. Remember, you reap what you sow, you reap after you sow, and you reap more than you sow.

Galatians 6:2,5

Galatians 6:2  Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. Galatians 6:5  For every man shall bear his own burden. Wait a minute! These two verses from Galatians 6 seem to contradict each other. So, is there a problem here in the Bible, or could it be a problem of how we understand these verses? Well, I don’t believe there are mistakes in the Bible, so let’s look at how to understand these verses. The first verse talks about our responsibility to our Christian friends, but the second verse talks about our responsibility ourselves. We should take care of our own burdens. But after that, we should try to take care of the burdens of our Christian brothers and sisters. It’s like this: if we take care of ourselves and we expect others to take care of themselves, none of us help each other. God expects us to take care of ourselves and to help others as well. If we do both of these, as our verses say, we will fulfill the heart of God, which is to love God and to help one another.

Galatians 6:1

Galatians 6:1 Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. We should never sin, but we do. And when we do, we should ask forgiveness immediately. But sometimes we don’t realize that we are doing something wrong. That’s when we depend upon our Christian brothers and sisters to help us. For example: I leave my house in the morning and forget to look in the mirror. I may have some egg from breakfast left on my shirt collar, but I don’t know that it’s there. So when a friend of mine sees it, he will tell me so that I can wipe off the egg. That’s what our verse is talking about. When we happen upon a friend involved in sin, we should talk to them about it. We should not gossip to others about our friend, we should go directly to them. And when we tell them, we should be kind about it. We should have the attitude of helping, not controlling or gossiping. We should be willing to help each other and we should be willing to listen to others when they have to talk to us about our sin too.