Galatians 5:7-10
You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? 8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you. 9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump. 10 I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is.
The Lord has been teaching me a lot about mission drift lately. This is what happens when an organization forgets their purpose and gets off track. The church in Ephesus suffered from a bit of this in Revelation 2. They abandoned the love they had at first but this must have started when they forgot how much Jesus loved them. The churches in Galatia had the same issue and Paul tells us when it started. It seems one person was preaching circumcision over and against grace. The inevitable result of this would be for the churches to abandon grace and submit to works based salvation. The drift would be complete.
This is true for organizations, for churches, and for individuals. You may be running well today but it is far too easy for us to get distracted by all the things of this world and forget the most important thing in the world. The Gospel. It can start innocently enough with us momentarily losing our humility and gratitude for grace and relying on our own “goodness”, not Jesus’ greatness. This will lead to mission drift and before long, we will fail at loving our neighbor which will hinder our effectiveness to make disciples. May we let no one trip us today.
O Heavenly Father, you have called us into a glorious covenant with you. May we let nothing hinder us in the running of the race today. In Jesus’ name. Amen.