The Gospel is amazing! The wonderful truth of grace: God’s love for us in the Lord Jesus, His gift of eternal life as we put our faith in Him alone to save us through His death on the cross and resurrection from the dead – it’s all beyond our understanding and deeply humbling!
Yet because it’s so beyond us, and God’s plan for the world is so amazing, we may be tempted to listen to hearsay rather than properly understood Bible! Indeed, our own sinful hearts can easily convince us that what we have in Christ must surely be influenced by our behaviour and we can find ourselves starting to behave, not in response to being loved, but as if we somehow have to earn God’s approval to be sure of being saved.
Very quickly we can find ourselves enslaved by the idea of keeping ourselves good enough for God. That kind of ‘religion’ leads to a sense of insecurity which makes us performance driven, defensive, and deep-down very sad.
Last Sunday morning we heard how the Christians in Galatia had been led astray by false teachers whispering to them that they needed to keep making sure they were good enough… but the apostle Paul’s response was clear:
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Gal 5:1)
Indeed, he wanted them to understand that…
“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” (Gal 5:6)
We can put no confidence in our own performance! Yet as we put our faith in the Lord Jesus we will find that faith expresses itself in sacrificial love for others and for God. That’s the freedom God has given us!
Spencer Shaw