To The Churches in Galatia
Many New Testament letters begin with a predictable pattern of greeting, offering grace and commending the addressees for being steadfast in their faith and commitment to Christ. Personal greetings, apostolic greetings, and courteous formalities are usually expressed before "getting down to business."
Galatians is not one of those letters.
Right from the start Paul jumps in with a sharply worded warning: his readers are in danger of being seduced away from the Gospel by outside influencers. The Galatians congregations have come under the spell of "false teachers" trying to place undue religious burdens on his friends. Paul believes they are nullifying the very freedom and salvation Paul preached to the Galatians and substituting a salvation based on burdensome religious works.
The letter to the churches in Galatia is passionate, urgent...sometimes almost angry in tone.
The original recipients may even have found Pauls's words difficult to hear, but ultimately the passionate appeal and stern words reflect nothing more than a loving shepherd caring for his flock; Paul will not always be there for them and he longs to see them mature and prosper in the Christian faith.
An Enduring Love for God
Suffering is not a pleasant experience, nor much sought after. But it is nonetheless a universal human experience. People suffer for all kinds of reasons, and will spend countless hours looking for the reasons for all kinds of suffering. Why is this happening? What did you and I do wrong? Where is the fairness? I don't deserve to suffer like this...how can I keep it from happening again?
In Romans 5, Paul wades boldly into the depths of human suffering and offers to Christians no plan for avoiding suffering, nor pathway out - instead only the counterintuitive assurance that those who give their lives to Jesus can count on suffering, and when they do they will rejoice.
Paul can say this with confidence because he knows Jesus himself his fulfilled the long-anticipate role of God's suffering servant, and that no servant is greater than his or her master, and that his followers will become like Jesus when they are faithful. Paul also knows that love for God has been poured into each believer's heart by grace and through the Holy Spirit...and all suffering becomes hope and endurance and strength in the refining fire of God's love.
Made Known to Us
From the dawn of time God was being revealed through creation (Psalm 19:1), through the scriptures (Psalm 1), through covenants (Genesis 9 and 17) and through generations of seers, sages, and prophets.
Yet throughout history, God’s people continually struggled to know and be known by our creator in a more complete way. The clear message of the gospel is that, in the end, God’s own self “went to the wall for his people.” He sent Jesus to open a path for knowing God more fully by offering forgiveness of sins restoring our souls to righteousness through Jesus. So completely does Jesus reveal the heart of God that he was able to tell his disciples “if you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”
Even so, there was a greater gift to be given to Jesus’ followers than knowing Jesus personally and glimpsing God through him. Jesus promised that his followers would be clothed with “power from on high” through the Holy Spirit…so that we can have oneness with God as Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit are one.
On Pentecost, the church discovered that God is a God who keeps promises, and we are invited to respond by living in deeper communion with God through he Holy Spirit.
Empowered to Witness
We welcome to Christ’s pulpit at FUMCO the Very Rev. Dr. Mathias Kwasi Forson, visiting from the Methodist Church of Ghana. Dr. Forson has served as the Director of Evangelism, Missions and Renewal for the Methodist Church Ghana, and was instrumental in the establishment of the Methodist Prayer and Renewal Programme (MPRP). He helped launch the Emmaus Walk movement in Ghana and Nigeria, and is the spiritual director of the Ghana Emmaus Community. Dr. Forson has trained and mentored many church leaders who are serving the church in various positions.
He has served as the National Chairman and Director of the Ghana Evangelism Committee (GEC). His primary responsibilities included training, equipping and, mobilising and resourcing pastors and church leaders in Ghana to fulfil their primary task of evangelism, and missions. He has initiated several church planting efforts in the church. .
Dr. Forson has spoken at various International . He holds a diploma in Theology from the Trinity Theological Seminary, Ghana, Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Ghana, Master of Theology at Emory University Atlanta, Georgia and Doctor of Missiology Degree from Asbury Theological Seminary (Wilmore, Kentucky).
Dr. Forson serves as the Superintendent Minister, Taifa Circuit of the Methodist Church, Accra Diocese. He is an adjunct professor of Evangelism and Missions at the Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon, Accra. Dr. Forson coordinates the LIFT Renewal Ministries in Ghana, Africa. He is married to Josephine and they have four children-two boys and two girls.
That Which Comes After (Part 2)
Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5, John 14:23-29
Jesus told his followers that he was departing in order to prepare a “dwelling place” for them in the fullness of God’s presence. At the same time, he promised that the Holy Spirit would come to make its own “dwelling place” among us…so that “Christ is in the Father, and we are in Christ, and all may be one.”
We are called to live as Christ’s church on earth in such a way that the two experiences of “dwelling with God” become one and the same. Our chief aim is to know God so closely, even now, that we’ll one day fall asleep in this world and wake up in eternity, and scarcely know the difference. To reach this aim, we must simultaneously embrace the Holy Spirit’s friendship and release that which is temporal, not of God.
As we grow into the mystery of eternal life with God we wonder: what part of this present life will weget to keep? What part will we have to let go?