The RefineryBiblical Focus: Paul’s Labor Pains
Galatians 4:19 (NLT)
Oh, my dear children! I feel as if I’m going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives.
Paul uses the most intimate image possible for spiritual formation: childbirth. He is in labor for these believers, and he will stay in labor until Christ is fully developed in them.
Notice the goal. Not that they would know more about Christ. Not that they would follow rules better. That Christ would be developed in them. Transformation is not imitation from the outside. It is Christ’s own life growing from the inside, until His character shows on your face.
Notice also that it involves pain. Paul says “again,” which means the Galatians had slipped backward. They had traded grace for religious performance, and Paul had to labor over them a second time. Transformation is rarely a straight line. Many of us have been born again, and then we drifted, and God had to labor over us again.
This closes our first week with a searching question. Is Christ actually being formed in you? Or are you just religiously busy? The Galatians were very active. They kept the calendar, the customs, the rules. Yet Paul feared Christ was not being formed in them at all.
This is why SHAWL was never meant to be a program. The five postures were never the goal. They were the soil. The goal was always Christ, fully developed in you.
The Practice of Transformation
Ask one mature believer who knows you well: “Where have you seen Christ grow in me this year, and where do you still see the old me?” Listen without defending yourself. Write down what they say.
✦ Reflection ✦
Is your spiritual life more activity, or more Christ?
Prayer: Lord Jesus, I do not want religion without You. Be formed in me, fully, whatever the labor costs. Amen.
The postures were the soil. Christ is the harvest.
Help Choose Our 2027 Devotional
As this year of Wrapped in His Presence comes to a close, we're praying about where the Lord is leading us next, and I'd love your help deciding. There are three possible journeys for 2027:
• Refined: The Refiner's Fire (Malachi 3:2–3)
• Abiding Fruit: From Presence to Overflow (Galatians 5:22–23)
• Wounded to Carry: The Ministry of Comfort (2 Corinthians 1:4)
Please pray over them, then vote here for the one that stirs your spirit.