Title: The road to true success
Galatians (19) The way to true success (Galatians 4:8-11)
"Do not cling to the law"
All believers were able to become children of God through the grace of the cross. However, human instinct keeps us looking for the law. That is why the Apostle Paul stresses the Galatians not to return to the elementary school of legalism (verse 9). It is to make your faith in vain, to labor in vain on the cross, and to make your own toil in vain (v. 11). That is why grace is more important than law.
The law of the Old Testament and the grace of the New Testament can be compared in this way. One day, a woman liked that her marriage went well. My husband was a straight man, and he had a neat appearance and personality. Throughout my life, I have obeyed the law very well. Because she is such a principled person who lives by the law, she also tried to support her husband who lives by the law in her own way. However, the more I tried, the more mistakes I made, and the fear of making mistakes made my heart tired. In the meantime, the will to live gradually decreased, and as the feeling of inferiority worsened, depression appeared.
One day, my husband died in a car accident. I was shocked, but since the dead are the dead and the living are the living, I got up again with the will to live. But a strange thing happened. The shock of losing my husband should have made my depression worse, but on the contrary, deep in my heart, I felt a strange sense of liberation, and the depression disappeared.
One day, several years after her husband's death, she met a good man through a friend's introduction and remarried. The second husband didn't have much to show about his appearance or wealth, but he was a man who almost died in a major accident and came back to life. And she appreciated her efforts to fulfill her responsibilities, and even if she made a mistake while trying, she always broadly understood and covered it.
She gradually regained her confidence. It gave me the will to live and I was happy to help my husband with his work. She couldn't believe her own happiness. There were no strict rules and laws in the home, but there was order under them. To her, her husband became a comfortable object of love that she could entrust her life with, not a burdensome object to look good on. In this parable, the figure of the first husband is the figure of the law, and the figure of the second husband is the figure of grace.
"The Path to True Success"
The Apostle Paul asks the question, “Why do you want to live in bondage to the law by returning to the weak and vulgar elementary school of the law? A saint serving as a servant of the law is like a prince living like a beggar. But, how often do you live as a free man after accepting Jesus at first, but as you get caught up in the legal instinct, even the saints become slaves to excessive desires?
There was a time when the phrase “get rich” was fashionable. This was the best saying for a while, but the saints also fell in love with its magic. But mature saints know the dangers of that word. If we cling to being rich, we fall into temptation, a snare, and greed, and eventually we are destroyed. The love of money is the root of all evil. How often have you lost your faith and ruined your family and relationships while so obsessed with money?
Being content is more important than wealth. When you become possessive, your reason and conscience stop working and you become slaves to money. There are people who claim that if you believe well, you can make money and all things will go well, but the reality is different. Even if you believe well, you will fail and get sick. Rather, there are many times when an unbelieving and depraved person achieves worldly success. Seeing such a reality, inexperienced believers who misunderstood the meaning of all things prosper fall into skepticism. “Why would God allow such a situation? Is God righteous?”
The problem of theodicy regarding ‘God’s justice’ is an eternal task. How can man understand all that God is doing? The important thing is to hold onto God and live with confidence in God's grace and love. A sincere believer prefers failure with God rather than success with turning his back on God. Rather than take the path of success without God, choose the path of failure in God. That is the path to true success.