Sep 18 – Isaiah 43, Isaiah 44:1-23 Galatians 3:26-29, Galatians 4:1-20 Psalm 108:1-5

Gal 4:9-10

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?

You observe days and months and seasons and years!

In proverbs we read, like a dog returns to it’s vomit – so a fool returns to his folly. In many ways we see that truth extended out here. Why do people keep on going back to the law? Why do they go back to the way the world works instead of the way God works?

I wonder often how anyone who has seen the goodness of God in their lives could drift away from it. How anyone who had experienced His grace could ever go back to their former life.

Yet it happens. And we must be wary of that in our own lives.

Not just with religious rules, although that is easy done. They’d started observing days and seasons – they’d gone back under the law instead of living in their freedom.

The trouble with going back under the law is it’s not a happy place to be. It robs you of joy because your salvation starts to be viewed as dependant on how well you are doing. And that’s just an anxious way to live – because we will keep failing.

Things had got so bad, Paul said they were at the stage where if he suggested gouging their eyes out would fix it – they’d have done that. Is he exaggerating? I don’t think so – I think that’s how much they were in distress.

Always remember the grace you are under. Your salvation is dependant on what Christ has done not on what you can do. You know that.. so don’t let the old ways of thinking creep back in.

Ps 108:4-5

For your steadfast love is great above the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. 

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!

Imagine for a moment that you are the writer of this Psalm. What’s the highest thing he could imagine? There’s mountains – but he will have seen could above those. What could, in his frame of reference be higher than the clouds?

This is a long time before air travel. No many had looked down on the could form such a height before – the clouds were the covering of the sky – high as high could be.

And he’s saying – love steadfast love of God is higher than that. His faithfulness goes that far.

Now imagine the highest thing you can imagine. We can think higher than the clouds… we’ve seen pictures from NASA looking down on the earth, so that the earth looks like a marble. We have seen images from the moon, with the earth small in the distance.

We can visualise the solar system, the milky way – so high above us.

The steadfast love of God is higher than that. HIs love for you goes further than that! What a love God has for us! His faithfulness towards us, higher and greater than we could imagine. That’s the God we serve – that’s how great He is.

We often think that while we are saved by grace, we either receive or lose God’s blessing based upon our performance and that’s just not true.

That tends to be our go-to thinking – our default. Even in little ways we keep reverting back to the law – back to performance.

But we must understand that if justification by faith in Jesus Christ is the basis of our relationship with God, our worst days are never so bad that we are beyond God’s grace, and our best days are never so good that we are not in need of God’s grace.

You need the Cross as much on your good days as your bad days.

Imagine how different life could be if we really and truly grasped this.

We are always in need of grace – on the best days and the worst days.

No matter what you face today – His love is bigger.