Sep 19 – Isaiah 44:24-28, Isaiah 45, Isaiah 46 Galatians 4:21-31, Galatians 5:1-6 Psalm 108:6-13

Gal 5:4-6

You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. 

It’s the law or grace. One – not both. Which would you rather live by?

Sometimes we seem to try and find a middle ground between them, but it doesn’t work like that. If you want the law and rules and trying to earn your way to heaven, then by all means go for it. However doing so severs you from Christ. Try and be justified by the law, fall away from grace.

Our minds don’t like this.

We were not saved by obedience, but by grace through faith. Furthermore, not only is faith the means through which we are justified; it is the means through which we are sanctified.

We grow through faith in the Gospel and as we accept Christ’s accomplishments for us and in us through faith. In both our justification and our sanctification we are called to live by faith.
Trusting in our own resources is perhaps the best practical description of unbelief, because we are called to stop depending on our own resources and to live by faith.

And that can be really hard – because it leaves us feeling out of control – we want to be able to DO something to get by.

We want to rely on ourselves because we can easily measure that. But self reliance leads to religion and leads to us stepping outside of grace.

God calls us to abandon the pursuit of self- righteousness. We do not have any righteousness but that given to us through our union with Christ.

Yes, we are called to live Holy lives – to be free from sin. But we don’t do it in our own strength.

Jesus is everything or nothing.