Are you so foolish? скачать в хорошем качестве

Are you so foolish?

“Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:1-29) Paul sounds almost bewildered. How did you begin in freedom and end up back in chains? How did a life sparked by grace get tangled again in performance? It happens quietly. We start with wonder — surprised by mercy, relieved to be loved without earning it. Then, slowly, we drift toward management. Measuring. Comparing. Adding small, respectable “shoulds” until grace feels like a rumour from the past rather than the air we breathe. To “forget our roots” is to forget that our life with God did not begin with our effort. It began with gift. We did not reason our way into rescue. We did not polish ourselves into worthiness. We were met — in confusion, in contradiction, in the long shadow of our own choices — by a love that moved first. The Spirit was given, not achieved. Faith was awakened, not manufactured. And yet the pull toward self-salvation is persistent. Rules feel safer than trust. Checklists feel clearer than surrender. But Paul’s question still stands: if the Spirit began this life, why assume the flesh can finish it? Growth in Christ is not a shift from grace to grit. It is a deepening reliance on the same mercy that first found us. The Christian life is not grace at the start and effort at the end. It is grace all the way down. Remembering where we came from keeps us tender. We know the terrain of failure. We recognise the ache of trying to be enough. So we become slower to judge, quicker to forgive, readier to believe that God is at work in others the same way God has been at work in us — patiently, persistently, kindly. We began as receivers. We remain receivers still. A Prayer Generous God,you met me before I knew how to look for you.You loved me before I knew how to love myself. When I drift into striving, call me back to grace.When I measure my worth by effort or comparison,remind me where my life with you began. Free me from the quiet pride that wants to earnwhat can only be received.Free me from the quiet fear that says I am on my own now. Fill me again with your Spirit —not because I deserve it,but because you delight to give. Root me so deeply in your mercythat my life becomes mercy for others. Let me live today not as a self-made soul,but as one carried by grace from first to last. Amen.