Amazing Grace #23

3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. 6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. (Galatians 1)

After giving his typical blessing of grace and peace, Paul jumps right in to address his deepest burden for this body of beleivers: abandoning Christ for a different "gospel".  The terms and concepts of "grace" and "gospel" are really inseparable. The Gospel is the Good News that God has sent His Son to do what we cannot do. That's grace at work.  But as we have seen, grace continues on, as Christ works out His salvation in our lives, changing us, transforming us, developing fruit and good works, and being a light in this dark world.  Our tendency is to be tempted to go back to doing it ourselves,  and to be swallowed back up by this world.  Notice Paul says Christ came "to deliver us from the present evil age", not just some time in the future, and that here and now "there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel." In other words, we are constantly being presented with worldly ideas on how to change ourselves and change the world.  This, says Paul, is another, a "different gospel." It really is not a gospel at all, because the gospel requires the grace of God in Christ.  Today, just as in Paul's day, there are false gospels out there, pointing away from Christ to some other manmade way for us to be saved - in fact, for us to save ourselves and the world.  Don't be swept away by some false, inferior gospel. Remember that Christ, and Christ alone was able to deal with our sins. Christ, and Christ alone, can change us, doing what we cannot do ourselves. Christ, and Christ alone can work in and through us to change the world.