Galatians chapter 4 and we'll begin reading at verse 12.

Brother and I beseech you become as I am, for I also have become as you are, you did me no wrong. You know it was because of

a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, and though my condition was a trial to you you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God as Christ

Jesus.

What has become of the satisfaction you felt?

For I bear you witness that if possible you would have plucked out your eyes and

given them to me.

Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?

They make much of you, but for no good purpose.

They want to shut you out that you may make much of them. For a good purpose it is always good to be made

much of and not only when I am present with you. My little children with whom I am again and travail until Christ be formed in you.

I could wish to be present with you now and to change my tone,

for I am perplexed about you.

I think the basic reason why Christian faith meets with opposition in the world and often finds resistance even in the

Church of Christ is that saving faith always brings with it a reshaping of the mind and the

hearts so that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives within us and

therefore gets the glory for whatever we accomplish. There is in every human heart, I think you would agree, an

intense and powerful love for the praise of man.

Just as naturally as apples fall downward, human beings gravitate towards ideas and actions which make them look big.

And they resist ideas and actions which make them look small.

And therefore, apart from the powerful grace of God overcoming our own natural disposition to pride, we always resist faith.

Because faith means that Christ is coming in and taking such dominant control of our

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