This Week's Reading: Galatians
Do You Live Trying to Be Good Enough for God?
“I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. 20 Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
21 I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily." Galatians 2:19-21 (MSG)
Reflect
Do you live under a “black cloud” of feeling not good enough for God? That others measure up, but you don’t? Does trying to keep the rules work for you? What does Galatians say about that?
Pray
“Lord, Paul writes that Christ has set us from the law, free from condemnation and guilt. Help me Lord to see the “rules” as your loving means of protecting me from harm and to see You and You Son as setting me free to love even as I am unconditionally loved. Amen”
Well, I'm going to go out on a limb here and ask where did all this insecurity come from?
ReplyDeleteCould it be that through the good intentions of sound teaching that we focus more on life application (what to do and how to do it) than on the Savior we confess to follow?
I wonder if we heard less of 'do this' and 'don't do that' and more of who He is and who we are because of Him if we wouldn't be able to let down our expectations of ourselves and of others.
In fact, there now seems to be a mantra of "Its not just grace..."
Well, it IS just grace. Why are we afraid of grace? Wouldn't a sound, heartfelt knowledge of grace leave us with a gratitude to love Him enough to respect His word?
Certainly, putting the focus on obedience as a mainstay didn't work. It didn't help the Pharisees and it won't help you and me.
Grace. If one could define Jesus, it would be with this word. Want to know Him? We'll need his grace for that. Want to love Him? We'll need His grace for that.
Want to forget rules and genuinely live for Him? We'll need His grace for that.
All the do's and the don'ts in the world and all the life application one tries to apply won't let you feel His Presence.
Only His grace will do that.
God Bless-
Well said Lynda. In my experience, organized religion has always migrated to controlling the behavior of its' adherents much more than enhancing their relationship with God. Grace is too simple, too easy - religion justifies itself by adding in complexities. This study in Galatians is an excellent opportunity to challenge all that.
DeleteThe simple message of grace is why my church family is at CLC!
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