Just a Thought "79"

Colossians 3:2 - The natural tendency of the flesh is to set our affection on the things of the earth and the things of the flesh and allow those things to rule our mind. We are not to hold the things on the earth so near and dear so as to rule our minds. Paul’s desire is that we refocus our minds, renewing of our minds day by day.

Paul would not have us be defeated believers, depression is Satan’s weapon to defeat us. Depression is a rush of negative attitude that results from a vacuum of joy. Joy is the opposite of negative attitude. Depression is negative attitude based on fleshly happenstance in the absence of hope. Is the primary focus of your mind on the circumstances at hand in your life?

When it comes to a mind set of joy, Paul takes us to a re-direction of thought and its up to each of us individually. It is our responsibility to focus our own minds appropriately and according to Paul its a redirection of thought based upon the accomplishments of Christ. The cause of depression is almost always related to fleshly circumstance, people, things and worry over those three.

Galatians 4:21 - Can a person’s righteous works be added to the righteousness that belongs to Jesus Christ himself, in order to arrive at a greater degree of righteousness than the righteousness already belonging to our Savior? Would more righteousness be needed than the Savior’s righteousness, when it comes to the human race? Is God requiring that we add our righteous works to Christ’s righteousness that we might become righteous indeed, or is Christ’s righteousness the only righteousness from God’s perspective his saints will ever need?

The lunacy of desiring to be under the law was in the fact that the Galatians actually thought they could perform the law in a manner that would make them more righteous before God. They were trying to perfect their righteousness, to cap off the righteousness they have in God’s sight. They thought they could enhance their righteousness through their performance, through their rule-keeping, and they were using the law.

God used the faithfulness OF his son and the faith of the Galatians in his son’s faithfulness to have resolved God’s justice for their sins as the criterion. If our only righteousness in the sight of God comes through our union with his perfectly righteous son, is it not idiotic thinking to suppose that our righteous works can ENHANCE the righteousness that belongs to Christ, to whom we have been joined? The Galatians were not falling back into sinful practice, they were falling back into law practice. They were falling back into the mindset that their righteousness before God was tied to their performance.

Philippians 3:2-3 - Paul warned to guard against those who would promote a righteousness through performance idea. Is it not interesting that the Gentiles had been considered dogs? Now you come to Paul speaking to the saints in Philippi, and it is the unbelieving Israelites who are considered dogs. Beware of Dogs; Beware of Evil Workers; Beware of the Concision.

Just the fact that they were of the physical linage of Abraham did not cut the mustard as far as their righteous standing with God was concerned. Paul is simply drawing a contrast between those who were relying upon ritual for righteousness and those who place no confidence whatsoever in their flesh for a right standing before God.

Paul’s point here is circumcision apart from faith is nothing more than concision. It is nothing more than mutilation. You see, the concision, although it sounds like the word circumcision, the concision is a reference to those false teachers who thought that ritual, who thought they could do something, perform something and the ritual here was circumcision.