Living Understanding Pt 31: Be not weary.

Galatians 6:7-10                    7Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked.  A man reaps what he sows.  8Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.  9Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.  10Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Ecclesiastes 9:10                    10Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

1Corinthians 15:58               58Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm.  Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

God cannot be mocked.

At the beginning of a section exhorting the Galatians to keep their eyes on the prize and to finish well, comes a rather enigmatic statement that God cannot be mocked.  We are left wondering just what that has to do with living a holy and righteous life.  The Galatians had started well, but recently had been going through a period of wavering and frivolity.  They had been quarreling, had conceit and envy (see 5:26), were not recognizing the legitimate needs of others (6:1-2, 6), and had begun to struggle with pride (6:3-4).  Paul’s point is this: ‘Naming the Name’, but not ‘walking the walk’ is hypocrisy and is basically a practical rejection of God’s values.

In many places Scripture verses exhort one to consistency in his or her Godly expression of love.

24You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.  (James 2:24)

9With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.  10Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing.  My brothers and sisters, this should not be.  11Can both fresh water and saltwater flow from the same spring?  (James 3:9-11)

So, it is a recurrent theme that inconsistency between faith and action is deadly because that sort of life is an elevation of self at the expense of Godly values.  Such a walk leads to spiritual and even physical death because eventually such inconsistency catches up to us.

Don’t become weary in doing good.

There are two words in the Greek language describing time.  The most familiar, chronos, has to do with sequential time, or clock time, and from which we derive words like ‘chronological’.  The other word, kairos, has to do with generalized time as in era or season.  So, the idea in v9 is that in due time God will grant us a harvest for our well-doing.  There are several implications contained in v9 worth noting.  One is contained in the sense of ‘do not become weary’—the notion that ‘OK, being good isn’t working so much, so I’m just going back to being like everyone else.  The heck with it’. 

But the idea that each of us should help one another is common in Scripture and should not be ignored.

1We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.  2Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. (Romans 12:1-2)

Another implication is that believers are to persevere through their struggles.  We all have them at various times and God wants those of us who believe to show the others that while faith does not prevent struggle, it does help with struggle.

22The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; 23they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22-23, ESV)

Give yourselves fully.

God is our LORD, our master, and our friend.  He wants us to do good both for our own benefit, and to help others in his family.  And we are not to be hypocritical; our faith and our actions must line up.  What good is it, James says, if, upon meeting a cold and undernourished person to say “Go, be warm and well fed” but do not help the person do so (James 2:15-16)?  If we call ourselves a believer, then that is a full-time covenant with God.  It is not a half-way measure.  Our believing life is abundant:  We have God, we have Jesus, we have loving friends, we have support, we have nurturing care.  This should be shared; given away freely.  Because of the encompassing worth of the resurrection; because of our survival of death, because of our friendship with the God of the Universe, everything else, every struggle, and every opponent, fades in comparison.

What about me?

As we navigate through our life, there are times of success and times of failure.  We would just as soon forget those times of failure, but often they are the most important.  It is those times when we depend upon our friends, upon God, and upon his love.  It is those times that remind how blessed we are; that God loves us no matter what, that we can’t run away from Him and that he will pursue and bring us back.  And it is those times that remind us of the consequences of our actions.  We are not islands, as the cliché goes, so the things we do have kick-back.  We should remember that worldly living does not please God.

The question remains, “How do you want to live?”  Will you live in as Godly a way as you can, knowing that you will consistently fall?  Will you get up, dust yourself off, hit ‘delete’ and move on?  Will you give in to Satan’s lies and think that no person as horrible as you could possibly be loved by God unconditionally.  Will you live the world’s way, living to feed your flesh, but knowing that ultimately that life will come back to bite you?

Those are questions that every single person on the planet must answer at some time.  The value of one’s life, and the impact that life will have on other people is dependent on the answer.