Daily Devotional for Monday 4th March
Known by God and Set Free!
I wonder if you have ever had the opportunity to see a whale in real life. It really is quite the experience! The first time I saw one was it was a killer whale when I was in Florida, at SeaWorld, about 25 years ago! A lot has changed since then, and last year I got to see a family of humpback whales in their natural habitat out at sea.
Not everyone approves of keeping whales in captivity, and some years ago on the Pacific coast of North America, animal rights activists managed to set a whale free from an aquarium beside the ocean. What happened next was remarkable. The whale swam some distance, spent a short time at sea, and then returned voluntarily to the aquarium. It had obviously decided that it was better off being looked after in captivity than fending for itself in the dangerous and difficult world outside.
Similarly, the Galatian Christians in today’s reading have been set free from their old ways, but it seems they are determined to return once more to the world where life seems safer, more regulated, where you know where you are: in other words, to the life of slavery. However, the whole point of becoming a Christian was to escape from the rule of the enslaving ‘gods’ and to find freedom in knowing the true God.
Or rather, in being known by this true God. What really matters is not our knowledge of God, but God’s knowledge of us. Our knowledge is small, feeble, and partial and seems to go up and down with our moods and feelings. If that was the thing that made us Christians, we would be building on very shaky foundations. What matters is that God has known us; not just in the sense that He knows about us, but that He has established a bond in which He knows us through and through and names us as His own family.
Leading a life of devotion and worship, gazing in adoration at the true God whose character and actions we can never study enough, sets us free from the rule of other gods, such as money, power and recognition, although these other gods will continually whisper to us that we might actually prefer being enslaved to them again. But, as Paul will go on to say, there really is no alternative. If we go back now, we are denying not only ourselves and our Christian experience, but God Himself.
Time to reflect…
Is there an area of your life that whispers to you, pulling you to turn back to your old ways before you became a Christian? Perhaps, like the Galatians, you are feeling that strongly today.
Be honest with God about it, talk to Him, after all He knows us better that we know ourselves.
Pause to pray…
Dear God, thank you that you are not a God who is aloof and distant, but a God who is always close to us, willing us to discover more about you. But more than that, we thank you that you know us better than we know ourselves and you still love us beyond measure. Help us to remember that you have set us free to live a life of freedom with you. Amen
