Thoughts for the Day

The scripture has imprisoned all things under the power of sin, so that what was promised through faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

The Royal Air Force, like most of the Armed Services has a rule that you can never say "I didn't know!" about something. So if you missed a parade or some other command, you were in deep trouble for you should have looked at the notices for the Day. No notice meant no problem!

Paul says to the Galatians if there was no Law (and he presumably means the Law of Moses, not later additions) you would not have known you were doing something wrong. The Law was like some giant notice board telling you what you should or should not do. So if there was no Law there was no sin! The purpose of the Law was to bring men and women to God, as they realised that they were simply unable to keep the Law.

His next words introduce the phrase "justified by faith", and there have been enough books on the subject to fill a few libraries. 'Justification' means simply to be 'made just', or 'put right', or 'to be righteous'. No one, but God, is perfect, we have all sinned. The Law helped people to see how they had sinned; the Galatians (and us) have been 'justified by faith' in Jesus (ie put right with God), and become 'children of God', with no difference between male and female, Jew or Greek, or for that matter between a Christian in Africa or a Christian in the west.

Today, many 'children of God' live in war zones. The numbers in five such countries are shown below ('World Population Review 2024'). Please pray for them.

• Israel: 266,000
• Libya: 170,000
• Palestine: 173,000
• Russia: 66,000,000
• Ukraine: 34,800,000

Lord God,
all too often when we hear the news
we think of war as being between other countries
and having little to do with us,
but we need to remember that there are
large numbers of Christians in all these places.
They may be members of different denominations,
but they worship the same God and have been
baptised in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
May we never stop praying for them,
in their hour of need.
Amen.