Who Am I

Devotional for week of May 7, 2007

 

Day One        Mistaken Identity      Genesis 3

1.                  When I was in first grade I went with my dad one evening to a small county fair where he was working the booth for his employer.  During the evening he took me to a concessions stand to buy something for us to eat. While we stood there waiting for our food, a lady came up and quickly grabbed my hand, yelling at me all the time, and started to drag me off.  Dad and I were in a bit of shock at this situation and a few steps later she looked down and realized that I was not the child she thought I was.  She quickly let go of me, apologized, and then ran off to find the true object of her frustration.  Apparently her son, who in some way resembled me, had run off and she had, understandably, become very concerned and frustrated at his disappearance.   She had mistaken me for her son. In our relationship with God the confusion is often the reverse of this. It is not the parent who misidentifies the child, but the child who misidentifies the parent. This has been a problem since the beginning of mankind.  We often forget to look at God as our Father and instead look at Him in many other ways.  What are some ways, other than Father, that the world looks at God?

 

2.                  Look at the story in Genesis 3 and note how their loyalty went from God to the serpent.  Why do you think, being as how this is the first experience of sin and disobedience to God, that she so easily switched her devotion from God to the serpent?

 

How do you think it is possible that she so quickly went from trusting God, who had been her protector and provider up to this point, to trusting another instead?

 

3.                  How do we, in a like manner, quickly switch our devotion and allegiance from God to Satan?

 

What does it take for you to keep God in the Father position in your life?

 

Day Two       Prisoners to Sin        Galatians 3:15-25

1.                  About a year and a half ago we moved into a different house. The house we had lived in had been our home for nine years.  When we had moved into that house it seemed perfect and large enough and I can remembering telling Andrea to get comfortable because we would be entertaining our grandchildren in that house.  What I did not know was that instead of grandchildren we would be having two more of our own children in that house.  After nine years, what had seemed to be more than enough room when we had moved in, became small and cramped.  We then moved into our current house which has an additional bedroom and space allowing us to spread out a little more.  Now, as I look back, I realize that I had no idea how limited our space was in the other house.  I think that we had become settled and comfortable in that space and were unaware of the fact that the walls were bulging and about to burst. In Galatians 3:15-23 the apostle Paul defines our life before the work of Christ in the same way.  He said that we were prisoners without even realizing it.  We were confined by and to our sin and had become comfortable and satisfied.  It is much like the story of the frog in the kettle.  As the story is told, a frog, if put in regular temperature water will allow itself to be boiled to death since it becomes comfortable as the water gets hotter.  The same is true of the prison of sin, we become comfortable and satisfied and accepting.  How do you see this true in  your own life and in the world you live in?

 

2.                  What does it mean that the whole world was prisoner to sin?

 

How did Christ alleviate this?

 

What is the role of faith?

 

3.                  How did the Law allow us to see that we were prisoners to our sin?

 

4.                  How do we often still allow ourselves to become prisoners to sin?

 

How do we overcome this?

 

 

Day Three     Sons of God  Galatians 3:26-27 and Romans 8:14-17

1.                  When Andrea’s granddad was a child, his mother (Andrea’s great grandmother) remarried a man who in turn adopted Andrea’s granddad.  Her granddad took his new father’s name and was accepted as a son by this new dad, the dad’s family, and the community in which they lived.  This man’s family had farm land in western Oklahoma and since Andrea’s granddad was the only heir he inherited all of the land.  When her granddad passed away, Andrea’s mother and her two sisters inherited this land.  They are not blood relatives, just as Andrea’s granddad was not a biological son but the inheritance was still his because he had been adopted and accepted as a son.  This is the same in our adoption as children of God.  Read Galatians 3:26-27 and describe what makes our adoption possible?

 

Are all humans adopted children of God?  Why or why not?

 

2.                  What does Romans 8:14-17 have to say about our adoption?

 

3.                  Do you think you truly realize what this adoption means to you?

 

How do you think your would think and live differently about yourself and others if you truly grasped the concept of your adoption?

 

Day Four       No Difference            Galatians 3:28

1.                  Wayne Scoggins recently conveyed a story of a church that Bonnie and He were members of in the early sixties.  Shortly after he was ordained as a deacon he said that one of the men of influence in the church, and in the deacon body, trained the other deacons on what to do if a “colored person” attempted to come into the church.  Wayne shared that they were told to block the entrance and send these people down the street to a “more appropriate church.”  Wayne said that it was amazing how vocal and upfront this man was and in his ability to make this sound like a spiritually acceptable thing to do.  Wayne said that what was more amazing was that the people in the church seemed to accept it.  Wayne and Bonnie did find that as they questioned this teaching they soon found that this man’s wife, although not vocal, was in disagreement with this bigotry.  While this type of “Christian” discrimination is unbelievable when we think that it existed decades ago, it is horrifying to imagine that it still exists today.  But, the truth is that it does exist and it exists in many churches and in the minds of many followers of Christ.  It is not just race that separates, it is nationalities, gender, socio-economic status, vocation just to name a few of the many divisive factors.  How do you see discrimination and bias at work in the body of Christ today?

 

2.                  What does Paul say in Galatians 3:28 about discrimination and separation?

 

What does Paul set as the goal for the body of Christ?

 

3.                  How do you discriminate? How can you be an agent for change?

 

Day Five        The Seed       Galatians 3:16, 29 and 4:1-7

1.                  Read Galatians 3:16 and 29, what do you think that “the seed” means?

 

2.                  Read Galatians 4:1-7 to see if it enlightens you on what is meant by “the seed, and heirs”.

 

3.                  The concept of “seed” and “heir” are tough to grasp and understand, but we can truly understand what is meant in 4:6-7 where Paul proclaims that we are sons.  He uses the words “Abba, Father” which we can almost translate “daddy”.  It depicts a close and intimate relationship.  How does your thinking of God and of yourself line up with the idea of God being “Abba, Father”?