We Believe

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE GALATIANS

WE BELIEVE

Gal 3:1-5

3:1 You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? 4 Have you suffered so much for nothing — if it really was for nothing? 5 Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

NIV

This whole thing is about those who came after Paul wanting to teach these Gentiles they needed to follow the law of circumcision, in essence, become a Jew first, before becoming a believer. This also speaks to the issue of being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. We are either saved by grace or we could say saved through faith in Jesus Christ or we are not. If we have to do something in order to be saved other than belief in Jesus then his life, death, burial, and resurrection are meaningless. If we think there is any human effort at all in our salvation other than believing, we have been deceived. How can we obtain the Spirit by doing something? How can we conjure up a miracle by compliance to some human standard, or for that matter by complying with the standard of God? That is what Paul is arguing that the Galatians need not have to comply with the standard of circumcision God established as a covenant with the Jewish people in order to be saved. If our salvation is not based on Jesus crucified then our faith is not faith at all. However, that does not mean we should live in any manner we desire just because we are saved by grace, or saved because we believe. Because we believe in Jesus, we desire to live a life that brings honor and glory to God. But this is not a life filled with our feeble attempts to follow the law or a set of rules and regulations. Of course we make every effort to abstain from sin, while maybe not every effort, maybe we just try to abstain as much as we can, with the knowledge when we want to do some sin we go ahead and do it, or that there are times we simply make the mistake of sinning, without purposing in our heart to do so. The point is that no matter how many laws or rules or standards there are, we cannot fulfill them all, all of the time. But because we believe, because we love the Lord, we do not want to sin, it is just we cannot help ourselves at times, we just sin, because we are not divine, we are human. Our failure to live up to every standard of God does not cause us to lose our salvation because that is solely dependent on faith in what Jesus Christ did. Our goal is not to live a perfect life, as we will surely fail, but our goal is to be with Christ, and that is only attained because we believe.