Galatians 4-6

Reading for Sunday December 8, 2019
Galatians 4-6
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This jumped out at me:
Galatians 5: 17-18 & 25
the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.  But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. 
 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

My Take:
     An analogy:  If I indulge in every food that I desire, the law (of nature) is that I will gain weight and be less healthy.  If I "diet", I will deny my cravings, lose weight, and be more healthy.  This would be living under the law (of nature).  However, the success ratio for dieting and then maintaining that better health is very low.  By denying your body of the food that it craves, your body responds by increasing its craving for that food.  If you are successful at denying your craving temporarily in order to lose weight, you will long for the day when you can return to your old ways.  The key to success is to scrap the entire path that you are on and replace it with a positive one.  
     An analogy within my analogy:  If you were driving somewhere and came to the realization that you were on the wrong road, you would find the correct road and stay on that road until you reached your destination.  You wouldn't just stay on the correct road for a while and long to go back to the road which was taking you in the wrong direction.  The key was that you scrapped the path you were on and replaced it with a more positive one.
     Saul was a Pharisee living under the law.  His path was one of persecuting the followers of The Way.  Jesus took Saul from that path, changed his name to Paul, and replaced him on a better path.  Paul never went back to persecuting Christians.  
     The key to being on the path following Jesus is not about denying ourselves those things we want to do that are outlined in the 10 commandments, its about following the two that Jesus gave us:  Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.
     By the way, if you follow those 2, you'll also be following the 10.  If you drive on the correct road, you won't be driving on the wrong road.  If you eat healthy, you won't eat unhealthy.  It's really just positive framing vs. negative.