FreedomSample

Day 3: A Tale of Two Trees:
It should come as no surprise to us that the New Testament was originally written to and for new Christians. And a man named Paul was used of God to write much of it.

Paul traveled through the area now known as Turkey preaching, bringing people together, planting churches, and training leaders. He did this from one city to the next. But no matter where he was working at any given moment, he never forgot about those he’d already helped. The people left behind were always on his mind and ever in his heart. He wrote letters to them. We call them epistles today. They were both personal and profound. And he would keep his ears open for any news about the work of the gospel where he had been before. The news would sometimes bless him, and other times it would upset him.

When he heard about what had happened in Galatia, he was upset! So much so, he wrote a letter to them—we know it as the book of Galatians. We can see his anger clearly in Galatians 1:6-7.

Just like what Paul is referring to in this passage, there are still two primary ways to approach God. Though the hot-button issues seem to change from era to era and generation to generation, they all boil down to two gospels. One says “God has done,” and the other says “We must do.” To those who think this way, grace is never—and has never been—enough. In another letter—to Corinth—Paul addressed the new Corinthian Christians who had begun drifting from the truth of the gospel: “But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3, NKJV).

I’d like to be able to tell you that you can choose the right tree at some point and never have to face this issue again, but that’s not how it works. Just as during their time in the wilderness, the children of Israel had to get up each morning and gather God’s miraculous provision of manna, so we have to start each day by choosing to live in the Tree of Life. And to experience what the prophet Jeremiah described as the new mercies of God every morning.⁠

You will always experience a pull toward the wrong tree, no matter how long you’ve been saved or how mature you may think you are in Christ. So, we must make the choice every day to live grace-centered lives and pursue a rich relationship with God.