Today's Readings - Jeremiah 1-2, Galatians 1, Psalm 109:6–12, Proverbs 24:1–2
Devotional
Henry Blackaby said that all human beings, even those who have been redeemed, have a natural tendency to depart from God. We are held by God's grace and our salvation is secure in Christ, but we have that inborn tendency to drift from our walk with the Lord back into the ways of the world and into sin.
Paul recognized a similar problem among the Galatians - a tendency to drift away from the gospel of grace and return to some form of works-based, law-focused salvation.
There is only one gospel that saves, Paul assured them, but they were still turning aside from the grace of Christ to a false gospel, one based on human works, one that could never save.
Deep inside of each of us is the idea that we ought to do something to earn the favor of God, that we need to change to please him, do something to make him love us more, or perform some heroic act to be worthy of God's grace.
But that is why we call it grace. You can't earn it and you will never deserve it. Nothing you can do will make God love you more and your sins do not make him love you less. That is not an excuse for sin, but a great comfort. It is by grace we are saved and it is by grace that we live.
Listen, my friend, your relationship with God is based on who Christ is and what he has done, not on who you are or your merit. You need to always resist that inner voice that says you've got to earn God's love. You ought to walk in holiness because God loves you, not so that he will love you. You need to fight that inner voice that says God must not love you anymore when you have failed. You resist sin out of gratitude for God's unmerited favor not out of a desire to earn it.
Like the Galatians, we have a constant tendency to slip away from grace and fall back into a works-based mentality. Since our salvation and our lives are all of grace, we must fight that tendency every day.
Paul recognized a similar problem among the Galatians - a tendency to drift away from the gospel of grace and return to some form of works-based, law-focused salvation.
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. Galatians 1:6-7
Deep inside of each of us is the idea that we ought to do something to earn the favor of God, that we need to change to please him, do something to make him love us more, or perform some heroic act to be worthy of God's grace.
But that is why we call it grace. You can't earn it and you will never deserve it. Nothing you can do will make God love you more and your sins do not make him love you less. That is not an excuse for sin, but a great comfort. It is by grace we are saved and it is by grace that we live.
Listen, my friend, your relationship with God is based on who Christ is and what he has done, not on who you are or your merit. You need to always resist that inner voice that says you've got to earn God's love. You ought to walk in holiness because God loves you, not so that he will love you. You need to fight that inner voice that says God must not love you anymore when you have failed. You resist sin out of gratitude for God's unmerited favor not out of a desire to earn it.
Like the Galatians, we have a constant tendency to slip away from grace and fall back into a works-based mentality. Since our salvation and our lives are all of grace, we must fight that tendency every day.
Father, I thank you that you have done for me what I could not do for myself. Help me to revel in your grace and never fall back into the works of the law.
Think and Pray
Do you tend to depart from grace and live according to works of the law, trusting in yourself rather than in Christ?
Do you often forget that your "hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness?"
In prayer, thank God for your standing in Christ's grace and renounce the flesh!
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