Supreme Court Nominees, or God?

The recent developments in the nominations to the Supreme Court have many people foaming at the mouth. Their spin on the changes is that "the next thirty years are at stake".

Is our life really determined by such externalities?

If we define our life in human physical terms, then, yes, governance and the economy have an impact on that. God does know that our vision of ourselves can easily be controlled by our bank balance, physical health and how others rule each other. At that level, the nomination of Judge Alito is of some significance.

Still and all, nothing justifies sacrificing higher principles remembering that God is holding on to us no matter our circumstances or our response to them. God shows his love for us on a personal level, and to focus on the governmental is to miss the depth of the individual and personal relationship that God is eager for us to experience.

I really don't think it matters if we weigh in on Judge Alito or not. If asked, I know that both freedom (economic and personal) and strong law enforcement consistently make our life here better. Orgasmic celebration is not called for on such items, any more than the approval of the communistic Ruth Bader Ginsberg should have called for nashing of teeth. Compared to our relationship with God, the Supreme Court doesn't measure up.

Do I care if Alito is approved? Sure. How will it influence my life? Probably much less than I can imagine today.

Why do we have God's spirit?

We have God's spirit so that we will see his love through a relationship with him. We do not have God's spirit to give us power to do stuff. God's simply knows that we reaaaaaalllly want to understand life around us, and in particular, that we do have a reasonable hope since God is caring for us. God's spirit in us is for us, not for others. Remember, God is the agent at work for good, not us.

OT Law was crucified with Christ

Galatians 3:3
After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?

There is nothing more clear than the intent of Paul's sentence above. Paul is suggesting it is missing the mark completely to attempt to attain things in the flesh, since our very new-life began not by anything that we did. Our efforts were of some minor value prior to the crucifiction: namely, they should us that we ourselves were helpless to actually do good.

The modern Christian church usually teaches that we are to combine the best of human effort with God's power. Paul teaches a complete elimination of the human effort component. So, to work on human effort so as to do God's work, in some way, is simply wrong. Christ is the only agent that is capable of any good, which can be worked through us. Our job isn't even to get out of the way so that God can work, since that would also be a job that we would have, and we don't have jobs, God does it all. He did all the saving when we came to Christ and the passage above reminds the Galatians and us today that Christ is still the agent in complete charge.