Law is a guardian until Christ comes

Galatians 3 - 4:7. Paul develops the idea that the Jewish Law is nothing more than a guardian, a stopgap, until Jesus Christ can come and fulfill the law. God never intended to be revealed only to the Jews. He intended to be the God and savior of all peoples in the world.

Psalm 47 speaks of all nations praising God. From all time God intended this. Somehow the Jews lost sight of this. But the prophets, under God's inspiration, did not. Many times in the psalms and the prophets God speaks of all the nations coming to him, repenting, bowing the knee, worshiping him. And God spoke of blessing the nations. The Israelites, in their hatred of their neighbors, wanted to keep the revelation of the true God for themselves.

Don't we too tend to lose sight of the fact that God is for all people and not just my little bunch? Don't we stick with our church, our circle of Christian friends? We act as if we would like to keep the good news to ourselves.

We think others will not appreciate it. Or else they would have already believed. They might make fun of us or get angry if we share Jesus the savior with them. So we dare not try to evangelize, tell them the good news.

We rationalize that it is us versus them. But God does not. He does not see it that way. Like in the Psalms, God desires all to come to him and praise him. It is right that we all should gather as brothers and praise God. The Live Aid shows get it half right. We are brothers: red and yellow, black and white. But what we share in common is a creator who deserves our gratitude for life and all the good things he gives us.

All non-believers are potential believers. God desires that it be so. All of them would be immensely better off if they knew the truth of the Good News of Jesus Christ. They have to be told, perhaps more than once. Advertisers know the value of repetition. Teachers know the value of repetition. Those who do not believe simply do not understand yet. If told another way they might finally get it. (Of course God gives the inspiration but we must be the feet of God.)

The Good News is that God does love us all, not just our little group, and made a way through the work of his Son for all to come before his throne to praise and glorify his holy name as is only right.

We who have accepted Him are carriers. Are we contagious?