Living to Please Men?

Focus: Colossians 2:8 - KJV

8. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

Galatians 1:6-17

There is a tendency for man to believe what was handed down to him by the forebears whether the same be profitable or not. No one seeks to forfeit the ways of his ancestors. Naboth would not willingly part with the vineyard he inherited to the king. Saul of Tarsus did not meet Moses, but the ancestors up to Moses had a religion and a tradition. When he saw Christ apparently “trampling the said religion/tradition under foot”, he revolted and caused the persecution of Christ and committed many of His disciples to death. All these he did not knowing that the religion of his fathers was not the way. But when the scale over his eyes fell, he accepted the Gospel and became its messenger converting many from the traditions of the fathers which he had believed wrongly. The same tradition which Paul jettisoned for the Gospel is what some people teach in the twenty first century. That tradition is not the Gospel. The Gospel is where the power of Christ lies, not in the tradition of the fathers. Because they were born into the same tradition, those concerned find it rather difficult to separate from the same and are unlike Paul. Such things as stated by Moses but not affirmed by the Christ fall into the tradition of men. The idea of the jubilee, Passover, servitude, animal sacrifice for purging sin etc., are not of the Gospel directed by God. They belong to the tradition of the Jews and have been abolished through the Gospel unto them that will be God’s. Engaging in them is simply futile and of no relevance to God.

The Lord sent Christ to ransom us from the heavy yoke laid on us by the law. He has given us Christ’s yoke which is easy. Stop the idea of “I was named or circumcised on the eighth day and therefore I cannot abandon the deeds of my fathers”. God cannot deny Himself because of our ignorance. No wonder He asserts that “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” For how much longer will we wallow and suffer in ignorance? The fathers lived their lives the way they thought right and God has decided to wink at their deeds because it happened in the days of ignorance. But will He continue to wink at our deeds after the provisions He has made for us through the Gospel? I think not.

SOLUTION: The reason the teaching of the Gospel is a continuum is so that the truth may be revealed to all that we may all follow the true way. Abstain from the old traditions and embrace the new for proper leading and living in the way to full salvation.

Father, we confess that we had been drawn to believe in the doctrines of men which further drew us away from your truth; please forgive us by your mercy in Jesus’ name. Every lie contained in the traditions of the fathers which the enemy has put into our thoughts as pertaining to the Gospel, please expunge from our minds and ways in Jesus’ name. Give us the grace to be illuminated fully by the light of your Gospel in Jesus’ name, so that from now on, we will no longer forfeit the benefits in the Gospel, in Jesus’ name.