(Lesson 2081)(08-14-17)  Galatians 4:12-20
    “Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as ye are: ye have not injured me at all. Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first. And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus. Where is then the blessedness ye spake of? for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth? They zealously affect you, but not well; yea, they would exclude you, that ye might affect them. But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing, and not only when I am present with you. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.”

    In today’s quote Paul, again, warned the Galatians of the influence that was being imposed by the infidel outsiders, and he especially warned them about the influence of the Jews as they kept trying to impose the rules of the old Law upon the Church. He even went so far as to express doubt as to the true devotion of the Galatians when he said, “for I stand in doubt of you”. 
    For those of us who seek the true and pure gospel of Jesus Christ, the lesson herein is to sift through all the extraneous nonsense that is forever being thrown at us, and abide by the simple doctrine that Paul so eloquently provided through his letters to the churches. We should ignore all the heretical pomp and ritual that is being practiced by so many of today’s religious congregations and remember that eternal salvation is by Grace, through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ ONLY. “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."~