All We Need: Galatians 6:11-13
Jesus is all we need; imitating Him is the greatest goal worth pursuing. His love satisfies like nothing else. His peace calms like nothing else. His death brings life like nothing else.
Paul gives a final warning about the people in this world who feel the need to put restrictions upon God’s work in us and His calling for our life. The warning is against those who believe we must do something to be saved besides receive the grace that comes to us through the faithfulness of Jesus on the cross. This warning can be taken a couple of ways.
People who make claims about needing to keep the Law – in this case, to be circumcised – do so they can avoid persecution. This has an element of making oneself feel better by putting someone else down. People who believe a certain lifestyle is necessary for salvation take this approach so they don’t look as bad. In this case, Paul’s antagonists can always say at least they’ve been circumcised. If anyone comes to them and finds fault with them, they have an automatic excuse to claim they aren’t as bad as the uncircumcised.
This is also a way to feel less pressure to examine and improve oneself. If I know someone is worse than me, I feel less urgency to improve. In a sense, this is spiritual laziness. This is a tactic used by people who are more concerned about their communal standing than their individual pursuit of becoming Christ-like.
Another way to take Paul’s warning is that these people are spiritually weak. Rather than risk persecution and stand firm against turmoil, they capitulate and bow to outside pressure. In this case, they cave to pressure from more traditional Jews. They avoid growing a spiritual backbone by going along with the prevailing belief.
Jesus didn’t die so we can go along with the prevailing beliefs. Jesus didn’t die so we can think more highly of ourselves than we ought. He doesn’t want us to be lukewarm people following the crowd for the sake of fitting in. It’s not about feeling good because we’re so much better off than the rest of the world.
God calls us to stand firm for His principles. We are to model His ways in the midst of a world seeking its own path. We are different. We lift other people up rather than put them down. We are the exemplar who imitates Christ.
Jesus didn’t come to uphold the status quo. If He did, why did He get into so many arguments with the religious elite? Jesus didn’t come to go along with the world. If He did, why did so many people chase Him out of their towns, turn away from listening to Him, or go away sad after He taught? Jesus came to teach the truth and die for our sake. Jesus is all we need; imitating Him is the greatest goal worth pursuing.
