Life At The Ridge

In this portion of the letter Paul wants these Galatian believers to once more see Christ clearly. He wants them to focus their attention back on Christ. He wants them to look again over and over and over focusing on the Gospel. They had become deceived by another Gospel. This is what we need as well if we are going to grow in Christ and not be entangled with the lies of legalism.

What does a justified life look like? The Gospel does some pretty amazing things in a persons life. Paul lets his readers know what the Gospel does not do and what the Gospel always does.

What do you fear? We all have things that frighten us from time to time. We also find that we may find ourselves in a habit of fearful living or lives that are marked by anxiety. Jesus confronts our fears with the question "why are you so fearful?"

Paul has been stressing that we are not justified by faith. Salvation comes as a result of justification and nothing that we do in our own righteousness. What is justification and what does it mean to be justified by faith in Christ?

How are you growing in your Christian life? Peter tells us that we are to be adding certain things to our faith to help us grow.

Our Lords resurrection was definitely miraculous! Never has anyone said that they would die, and then say they will resurrect from the dead and actually do it. The resurrection is fundamental to Christianity. You can say that all of Christianity rises or falls on the reality of Christ rising from the dead. If you read through the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection in Luke and John you will find 7 questions that Jesus asked people that saw Him after He resurrected from the dead. We will explore two questions Jesus asked Mary at the empty tomb.

Why do you follow Jesus? On the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem there were many people who were shouting "Hosanna!" why were they calling out to Jesus to save them? Were they following Jesus for the right reasons?

Allan McGuire teaches out of Mark 4:21-34 about the several parables Jesus gave.

Grace is a free gift from God. We are saved by grace and not through good works. But do we admit that we can grow only by that same grace? Do we believe that we need His grace each and every day, as much as we did at the beginning of our relationship with Him? Peter as we will see in this passage was using grace in the wrong way and at the same time promoting a false view of grace and a false view of salvation that Paul had to correct. Grace is not a word that we can throw around to do whatever we want to do and act any way we want to act. Grace is costly and there are some things that Grace will not tolerate.

As Paul continues to help the churches in Galatia understand the importance of the Gospel, he recalls what took place in his salvation and that the Gospel is worth fighting for. How do we fight for the Gospel?

What are the differences between God's Gospel and Man's Gospel? Paul wants the church's in Galatia to how that the Gospel that he received and believed was not from man, but from God.

Chapter 4 of Mark gives us the parable of the different soils. How does the Word of God work in our lives from the Cradle to the Grave and the in-between?

In chapter 1 of Galatians Paul is going to get right to the point and the point was that these believers were not holding fast to the Gospel. They were in Pauls words “have turned to another Gospel” These were believers and yet they were wooed away by a false gospel. How can we hold fast to the Gospel so we are not carried away by the false gospels that are out there?

In this series we will be exploring the rich truths found in our salvation with Christ. In this introduction we will set the stage for our freedom that we have in Christ.

As we wrap up the last few verses out of the book of Micah, we encounter a question from Micah. "Who is like you O God?" What do we know about the only God who saves us, redeems us, and forgives us?

What exactly is the unforgivable sin? What does it look like for a person who has committed this sin?

The flavor of this chapter is completely different than the previous chapters. Throughout this book it's been a courtroom setting. God is bringing a lawsuit against his people. Chapter 7 however is different. The style of writing changes from this covenant lawsuit to more of a response of distress and lamenting. This chapter is very personal. Micah in this chapter is responding to the coming disaster.

Court is still in session, and the Lord is going to show Israel the evidence of their guilt and then pass judgement upon them.

Chapter six begins the third message of judgement which will be followed by a message of hope that goes through the remainder of the book. In this chapter it gives off a feeling of a courtroom setting. It’s very personal. God is going to be the judge. The mountains and the hills, that is the earth, is going to be called as a witness or a jury to dispense either guilty or not guilty. Judah (the southern kingdom) is going to be the defendant, And God calls Micah to be the prosecutor to bring God’s case against His people.

Mark 3:7-21 gives us some insights to the types of people Jesus encountered in His ministry. We see Him encountering the crowds as He healed many. We see Him calling His disciples and we see Jesus as He encounters His own family.