Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

We live in a world where money buys things. In the United States, our dollar used to be backed by (or based on) gold. It was called The Gold Standard. There were pros and cons to this. It was, possibly, a less flexible way to manage the economy. However, one of the great pros of The Gold Standard was what backed up each dollar was solid gold. It had real value in and of itself. Much of what we wrestle with today with rising inflation, could be sourced back to giving our government unrestricted access to print money without an asset like gold backing it up. The printing of money is now done at will by our government.

Paul dealt with something similar to this in his time, spiritually. Some churches were allowing false teaching to infiltrate their ranks. The funny thing about false teaching is it has the look and feel of the real thing, but like a polished apple that is rotten on the inside, so those who follow it will be sorely disappointed. False teaching is not backed by pure truth.

Imagine with me if instead of gold on a wedding ring, someone sold you a gold-plated ring, made out of a non-precious metal at its core, but charged you full price. You would have been cheated.

False teaching incorporates elements of the truth to entice its victims (like gold plating), but it is poisonous in the ways it introduces lies and falsehood into the church of Christ (a false or rotten core).

Paul is saying here — he is strongly warning the believers in Galatia — don’t give ground to those who preach a false doctrine. Stand up to them and hold high the standard of the gospel of Christ. If they compromise now, if they go along to get along (and in this case get circumcised), it will be of no value and likely hurt their faith. Why? Because they are putting their trust in men and their rules, instead of Jesus Christ and his truth.

The truth is, outward signs of worship to God mean nothing if our hearts are not humble, repentant, and joyful in him. So today, we can choose to focus on the inward process and journey God wants to take our heart on first. And then let the outward look and feel of our faith flow from that. We can shine the light of Christ Jesus to a dark world! We don’t need an outward make-over of our faith, we need a renewed cleansing of the core of it!

Lord, thank you that you love me so much! You take my brokenness and weaknesses and shine through them as I surrender my heart to you. May it be so more and more, and I hope your truth will resound in my heart and to all those around me!