The Deadly Music of the Sirens

Gal 3:2-3  Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?  (3)  Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

It is easy to be bewitched by a religion of works.  Even when one acknowledges that he is unable to approach God on the basis of his own righteousness, responds by faith to Jesus, and enters into a right relationship with the Lord works tries to reemerge.  Works says, yes you began by faith, but you can't approach God with sin in your life.  So, the battle ensues to stop sinning that we might approach God.  Our relationship is once again, in our minds, about our obedience, not about Jesus.

In Galatians this tendency is forthrightly denounced.  Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?  Obviously not.  Don't be enslaved once again to the law, but walk in the Spirit.  In his book "You Can Change" Tim Chester uses a great literary example to illustrate the difference between trying to continue by works...or by gospel.

"In Greek mythology, the Sirens would sing enchanting songs, drawing sailors irresistibly toward the rocks of certain shipwreck.  Odysseus filled his crew's ears with wax and had them tie him to the mast.  The is like the approach of legalism.  We bind ourselves up with laws and disciplines in a vain attempt to resist temptation.  Orpheus, on the other hand, played such beautiful music on his harp that his sailors ignored the seduction of the Sirens' song.  This is the way of faith.  The grace of the gospel sings a far more glorious song than the enticements of sin, if only we have the faith to hear its music."

Tim further compares the two approaches to personal holiness in our lives with a poem often attributed to John Bunyan:

"Run, John, and work, the law commands,
Yet finds me neither feet nor hands;
But sweeter news the gospel brings,
It bids me fly and lends me wings."

I recommend the book to anyone seriously seeking to make the difficult changes and break the persistent addictions in their life.  I recommend the gospel that this little book points us toward.  I recommend the God of that gospel.  In Tim Chester's own words; "People aren't changed by therapy or analysis-not even Biblical analysis.  They are changed by God."