No book of the Bible separates those who get grace from those who don’t like Galatians.

I’ve been teaching Galatians, tweeting and facebooking quotes about Galatians, and discussing Galatians for a couple of months now. It amazes me that most Christian’s reaction to the radical Gospel of Christ is, “Be careful, don’t get carried away with this ‘grace thing.’”

I’m sorry, but I’m just going to have to disagree. You can’t get too carried away with grace. Grace is what the Christian life is all about. But there is one excess of grace the Book of Galatians warns us against.

But is has nothing to do with the typical evangojive lists of do’s and don’t’s.

Remarkably, it isn’t about Christian freedom at all.

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“Whatever happened to our hope of heaven?”

That’s the question an aged saint asked of a small group she had joined when a twenty-something Bible student told her he could care less about heaven because, “He was into being the hands and feet of Jesus to a hurting world.” He was about living for others, not about what He would get someday through some, in his words, “pie-in-the-sky” promises that, again in his words, “medicate the poor and hurting” so that they’ll accept social injustices.

As a Jesus Movement convert of the 60’s, I’d have to own some of this young man’s charge. We were so focused on “getting people to heaven,” we convinced ourselves we could ignore the social insensitivities, the prejudices, and injustices of our day. Wouldn’t want anyone to accuse us of preaching a “social gospel” like the liberals.

However, if I’m reading my Bible correctly, there’s no good hell and no bad heaven. Seems to me this isn’t an either-or but a both-and deal. Believers who ignore the hurting aren’t living out Christ’s love in this world; believers who ignore eternity aren’t living out what He says about the world to come.

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