When all else fails, read the instruction manual. Many people have this as their motto for living. Try. Fail. Try. Fail. Hmmm. Maybe I should see what the manufacturer recommends.  But our efforts only carry us as far as our understanding is accurate.

 In today’s passage, Galatians 3:1-14, Paul is suggesting this very thing. He asks the people in the Church at Galatia,

Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?”

For a long time, I’ve thought the Holy Spirit is the best kept secret of evangelical Christianity. However, for fear of sounding like we’ve abandoned all reason under criticism of the watching world, many Christians lock the Holy Spirit away (as some embarrassing relative no one wants to talk about).

But for Christians, the Holy Spirit is our greatest testimony that we’re in the family of faith. By our own efforts we can look at the Bible, read it, and work hard at following it. We can “observe the Law,” what my Jewish friends would call observant and my Mormon friends would call faithful. But the Holy Spirit isn’t there. Good behavior is there. And good behavior on the outside won’t solve the sin problem that we carry as part of our nature.

 How does Paul say we get the Holy Spirit? By faith in God through the work of the Jesus Christ (as portrayed in the Christian Bible).

And it’s by faith that we will walk on the Way of Holiness—hand in hand with God’s Holy Spirit who will guide us.

Admittedly plenty of Christians keep the Holy Spirit at home in the closet and do what they feel like doing—maybe following the Law, maybe nowhere near it. Like people who have an instruction manual but keep it in a drawer, they don’t avail themselves of the resource they need to solve the problem.

Christians have the Holy Spirit and can trust God to stand in the gap for us where our human efforts fail. It’s kind of like having the instruction manual hardwired into our lives and having a “Fix it for me” feature when we’ve reached the limits of our understanding. Paul writes,

All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith…[Jesus] redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit” (verses 10-11, 14).

Have you received the promise of the Holy Spirit by faith in Jesus Christ?

Yes, I’m a product of the 1970s.  Probably not the proudest era of American history—a generation of big hair, disco, and leisure suits.  But one thing came out of the 1970s that I think about a lot: Garanimals.

For those of you who are “1970s challenged” or too young to have experienced that decade in all its superficiality, Garanimals arrived on the clothing scene to help children figure out what to wear.  You match the animal of the shirt with the animal of the pants and voila!  You have a matching outfit.

What does this have to do with walking in the Way of Holiness, you ask?  Well, today’s passage reads like a Garanimals outfit.  We are not to outfit ourselves with mismatched lives.

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?  What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?  What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” 2 Corinthians 6:14-16

Basically, it’s an issue of integrity.  When we claim to follow Jesus Christ, we cannot live part of our day as Christians and the other part of our day as little devils.  We cannot dress our character in our Sunday best…on Sundays; and the rest of the week, go for the grunge look.  Our hearts—where God dwells by His Holy Spirit—always need to be whole.  The condition of our heart is revealed by what inevitably shows on the surface.  It is displayed in our character every moment from one day to the next.

 “Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”  “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”  Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God. Corinthians 6:17-7:1

It doesn’t mean we need to be perfectionists, but we need to have a Garanimals life.  We cannot have mismatched character or integrity—we need to be clothed in Christ from top to bottom as we walk on the Way of Holiness.

Idolatry—not everyone’s favorite subject.  In fact, many of us go through our days not really thinking much about it; maybe belittling it in public; or disregarding it as having no relevance for today.

Big mistake, or so Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10: 14-15: “Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say.”  If you’re sensible, you will think about it.  You will recognize it and not diminish its insidious pull at your life.  You will flee from idolatry knowing that it endangers your soul and your relationship with God.

Does this make you uncomfortable?  That’s because of what idols are—and what idols do.  Americans love American Idol and probably don’t think much about the name.  But an idol is anything we worship that is not God.  “Oh, I don’t worship a TV show,” you might be thinking.  Do you order your day so that you can watch it?  Do you talk about it with your friends and co-workers?

Now ask yourself whether you order your day especially so that you can worship God?  Do you talk about Jesus with your neighbors and co-workers with the same enthusiasm with which you talk about American Idol?

Maybe TV isn’t your cup of tea.  How about golf?  Tennis, anyone?  Chicago Bears, unless you’re a Packers fan?  If we’re more likely to desire activity in these areas—more than spending time with God—it reveals that our hearts are divided.

God desires wholehearted worship and therefore, we are to flee from idolatry.  That means we are not to participate in worshiping things that the culture worships.  In verse 22, Paul asks “Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy?  Are we stronger than he?” 

Does that mean I need to give up golf, tennis, Starbucks, or TV?  No.  Just ask yourself if you’re worshiping it.  Can I just give it up for Lent?  Not if you’ve concluded it’s an idol in your life.  Wholehearted worship is an all-day, every day perspective. 

As we continue in this season of Lent, ask God to reveal any hidden idols and ask yourself,

What do I worship? What am I devoted to?

Does anything have such a hold on me that I am unwilling to give it up?

Mistakes—I hate making them.  Sins—I hate committing them.  Trials—I don’t like having them.  Temptations—I don’t like facing them.  One would think that given how much I don’t like these things, I could just avoid them.  Wrong.

Experiencing all of this is part of what make us human.  The Bible tells us that in His lifetime Jesus faced these trials and temptations. 

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are– yet was without sin (Hebrews 4:15) .

How did He do that?

Aside from having a holy understanding of how God sees trials, Jesus also knew what happened to people in the history of Israel.  He knew the mistakes others had made, going all the way back to Adam.  By His trust in God, Jesus was able to avoid the errors of those in the past.

Today’s passage, 1 Corinthians 10:1-18 gives some stark examples from Israel’s history—undoubtedly a history with which Jesus was familiar.  And before the Apostle Paul penned the words by the Spirit of Christ, Jesus knew them.

These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!  No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it (1 Cor 10:11-13).

This is reassuring news.  We don’t need to learn from our own mistakes.  We can learn from other people’s.  Seeing the consequences beforehand, we don’t have to resort to trial and error as a way of moving through the obstacle course of life.  We can watch those ahead of us in line. 

We can keep an eye to the past and either learn from it or repeat it.  But we cannot assume our consequences will be any different for any course of action.  Therefore, it’s a better thing to keep our eyes focused on how Jesus lived and look with faith toward the one who will provide a way out of the temptation so we can finish the race without falling.

With so many examples of people from history, let’s learn from Jesus’ wisdom and from other people’s mistakes.  It’s much better than trial and error.

Today we begin exploring ways to walk on the Way of Holiness. 

It’s better to have a guide than a map, as one person said to me.  Even in a GPS world, I think that still rings true.  At one point, I was driving with my son in Washington, DC.  We had our faithful GPS with us so we could find our way around.  One problem:  everything was under construction and the GPS didn’t know it.

As the GPS desperately tried to reroute us back to the same road we knew was closed, we realized we’d prefer to have someone in the car with us who was familiar with the area—someone to guide us.  A GPS system at its best is just an interactive map, but a guide knows the lay of the land and can navigate paths for us to take even when a map fails us.

That is the basic message of today’s passage:  Jesus’ Holy Spirit is our best guide to the Way of Holiness.

For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. Romans 8: 3-4

In areas where the map (the law) can only go so far in helping us arrive at our destination, Jesus paved the way for us.  He is our reliable guide and now it’s His Holy Spirit who effectively guides us toward holy living…even when the map is confusing or tries to reroute us back to roads that are closed.

Do we want to see the everlasting joy on the horizon of the Way of Holiness?  The Bible says, we will experience life as we walk with God’s Holy Spirit. 

Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation– but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  Romans 8:12-14

Have you decided to follow Jesus and let His Holy Spirit guide you?

When we travel somewhere, we carefully pack our suitcases.  We assemble our supplies in a tiny plastic bag so we can make it through airport security.  We take action well before our journey to ensure we will get on the plane with our carry-ons.  We have our destination in mind. 

In a similar way, spiritual preparation means we look at where we are now and where we’re going.  We have seen in previous devotionals our need to repent and be made holy.  Now the question is how?

With our destination in mind, we will shift our focus to how to become consecrated (set apart, holy).  Our destination is the Way of Holiness referred to in Isaiah 35.   Unlike the arid desert of testing, the desert changes when it receives rain from heaven. 

Isaiah 35:1 The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, 2 it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God…

Here we see the Way of Holiness and the result of it: everlasting joy. 

Isaiah 35: 8 And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way; wicked fools will not go about on it. 9 No lion will be there, nor will any ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the redeemed will walk there, 10 and the ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

There are many spiritual exercises we can do in order to be fit to walk in that Way.  Our daily encouragement focuses now on developing a fitness plan to get us ready for walking with God on His path to everlasting gladness and joy. 

It’s not a sprint to Easter, but a marathon of life on the Way of Holiness—God’s highway in the wilderness has been prepared.  Now we begin walking in this Way.

When we read passages like 2 Chronicles 29 that tell the story of King Hezekiah ordering consecration of the temple, how many of us find the passage repulsive?  Slaughtering of animals.  Blood everywhere.  Burnt offerings.  It’s really hard for us to relate to any of that.

Furthermore, some of us may wonder why God would find any pleasure in sacrifices whatsoever.  Doesn’t God have better things to do…or better things for people to do?

Closer to the truth, however, is that we fail to see sin the same way God does.  The high cost of sin is death.  Since we can’t learn a lesson from our own death, we have to learn it from someone else’s.  In the Hebrew Scriptures, God asserts time and again how repulsive sin is by commanding sacrifices to remind the Israelites of the clear connection between sin and death.

This is completely foreign to us.  Consider some modern attitudes:  Who are you to judge?  It’s my truth; just another lifestyle; a decision between me and my doctor; or how I feel like living—I’m not hurting anyone. 

If we had to kill an innocent animal for payment of sin, we might reconsider what we do.  Then again, how many of us would just give up on God to avoid thinking about it?

King Hezekiah commanded making things right with God beginning with purification of the temple. 

For our fathers trespassed and did what displeased the LORD our God; they forsook Him and turned their faces away from the dwelling-place of the LORD, turning their backs on it” (2 Chron 29:6 JPS Tanakh).  

Hezekiah associated sin with its consequences (v 7). Contrasted with the Westboro so-called Baptist Church, Hezekiah didn’t command hate speech, picketing, or hurting others to throw sin’s blame on someone else.  Rather, everyone sought God, recognizing there is collective and individual responsibility for sin. 

We miss the point in our culture today:  Sin isn’t someone else’s problem–it’s our problem.  Thankfully, sacrifices aren’t needed anymore.  God accepted Jesus’ as final perfect payment for our sin.

Remembering that the crucifixion of Jesus Christ was the high cost of my sin and your sin, we will cease looking for others to blame. No picketing—just acknowledgement that blame and sorrow for sin rest with all of us.

Have you ever noticed that when something good happens in the world, there’s credit abounding everywhere among mankind?  Credit for the medical breakthrough?  Man.  Technological advance?  Man.  Financial boon, peace treaty, natural discovery?  Man, man, man.

But when something bad happens, it’s always God’s fault.

Tsunamis are a case in point.   The reasoning?  People have no power for controlling the ocean’s force.  Only God has that kind of power so inevitably we reach the foregone conclusion:  it must be God’s punishment when the tsunami hits.  Then society asks the predictable question, “Why would God punish Japan or whatever country is involved?”

We miss the point when we go down that line of reasoning: this world is not meant to last.

Just as cars have warning lights when things are not working properly; just as nuclear reactors have certain predictors when danger is ahead; just as cell phones have signal strength showing the limitation of their range of reception, so also the earth gives signs that it was not meant to last. 

In blaming God, our great reasoning error is assuming that this earth is our final and greatest destination.  Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, wars, fires—all these things are indicator lights that this world is on its way to being obsolete.

The irony is this: those who believe in the inherent goodness and competence of man and do not believe in God at all—they are the quickest to blame the God-who-doesn’t-exist whenever disaster strikes. 

For those who do believe God exists and who ought to know there is a greater final destination (a new heaven and a new earth), they look to blame societal sins in answering the question “Why?”  Answers are on every corner: Shame on the capitalists, the gays, the divorce rate, the West, and the sex trade! 

Rather than agreeing that a nasty God is punishing anyone, Christians are supposed to accept these natural disasters as heart-wrenching longtime warning signs (Romans 8:22) of an earth that has been broken since Genesis 3.  These are signs that Jesus referenced in saying redemption is drawing near (Luke 21:28)—ones urgently pointing to a different final destination than this old, broken earth. 

The question that remains is whether we will give up blaming long enough to begin with a different line of reasoning—one that assumes this earth is not our final destination—and to prepare accordingly.

Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands (Deuteronomy 8:2).

In Deuteronomy, a book that the Jewish Bible simply calls Devarim (meaning words), Moses gives a farewell address to the people who will enter into the Promised Land.  Moses will not be allowed to enter and will die in Moab, yet he reminisces about the goodness of God and His promises for Israel’s future. 

A central theme of Deuteronomy is encouragement to remember and not to forget.  While that might seem like the same encouragement coming and going, there is an important distinction which we see in Chapter 8.  In Deut 8:2, Israel was to remember that God faithfully led them in the desert for 40 years; their clothes never wore out; neither did their sandals; they had food to eat; and water to drink.  Day after day for 40 years God was faithful.  Every day for 40 years, God ensured they would have no doubt His hand had delivered them.  He was continually delivering them.  Forty years… the full lifetime of everyone under the age of 40!  God had proven His faithfulness every day of their lives.  This was grace in the desert.

But grace in the desert had a purpose (verse 2): to humble them and test their hearts so they would be prepared to keep His commands…even as they experienced prosperity.  In verse 18, God reminds them neither grace nor wealth are earned.  Both are a gift from the hand of God.

They weren’t to remember the testing per se but only what God proved by it: He is faithful and He is good!

Remember God’s role, but the other point of the message was “Don’t forget.”  This was their responsibility.  Don’t forget to obey God because it has consequences.  In verse 19, the mounting case of “pride goes before the fall” warns of a dramatic conclusion: they would be destroyed.  Disobedience has consequences.

God did His part for 40 years demonstrating His faithfulness— a fact worth remembering!  But entering a land of promise and temptation, wealth and idolatry, obedience and destruction, they were not to forget their role:  to observe the commands of the Lord, walk in His ways, and revere Him (verse6).

Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day (Deuteronomy 8:11).

Are you more likely to remember the tests over what God proved by them?

Have you remembered that every blessing is a gift from God?

Is there anything you’re forgetting?