Galatians 3: Living Only for JesusНамуна

In the last study we talked about the importance of faith, and of the need to live each day with the same sort of faith that we exercised when we first came to believe in Christ. We saw that this kind of faith is an Abraham-type faith. It’s the kind of faith that goes on trusting God, even when we don’t really think our behaviour has been very good! 

It’s the kind of faith that sees that the cross goes on being effective for the forgiveness of our sin, day after day after day. It’s the kind of faith that doesn’t give up when faced with difficulty, turmoil or hardship. Nor does it give up when faced by our own awful sinfulness.

The point is this: every day you will face problems of sin. If you’re in your teens, you may disobey your parents or your teacher. You may have very ungodly thoughts come into your mind. You may be tempted to cheat or lie. You may really hurt someone by what you do or say. You may have resentment or anger in your heart. You may do or say or think something that you know is really very evil.

Whether you realise it or not, all of these experiences bring a load of guilt onto your conscience. Even though the sin or the failure may be in relation to another person, it is ultimately towards God Himself. God has made us in such a way that we will always react when we sin. 

We will try to ‘justify’ ourselves! We will blame others! We may get angry with ourselves for doing it in the first place (especially if we’ve got caught!), and we will try to ‘make up for it’.

Just think for a moment. Remember those times Mum or Dad asked you to do something, but instead of doing it, you’ve gone and done something else? That ‘something else’ was a reaction to your disobedience and an attempt to ‘make up for it!’ We all do it one way or another (adults are probably more sneaky!).

Now, the whole point of these studies in Galatians is to help you understand that God has done all that needs to be done to ‘make up’ for your guilt. It was all taken up on the cross when Jesus died. You don’t have to make up for anything. He has said it, and you are to believe it.

We are to go on having the same sort of faith we had right at the beginning when we first came to Christ.

We do not have to add anything to Christ’s finished work on the cross. We do not have to ‘make up’ for our day-to-day failures. We do not have to obey a set of laws or rules or regulations (as these Jews were saying) in order to go on being accepted by God. 

We are to have an Abraham-type faith. A faith that just goes on trusting, whatever. A faith that goes on believing God even in the midst of our sin and our failure and our disobedience, and in the midst of our hardship or our suffering.

If we do not have this sort of faith, we will always start adding to what God has done for us on the cross. We will be saying, in effect, ‘God has not done enough to deal with my sin—His cross is inadequate.’

At that point you will have become like the Galatians— bewitched! -hypnotised—deluded—deceived faithless! And, of course, very foolish!

I hope this helps you begin to understand the tremendous importance of what we are studying. If you begin to see how this teaching affects your everyday life, then it will come alive to you.

When you are tempted to get mad at your brother, for example, or to be rude or hurtful to your sister, or to sound oft’ at your parents, then just stop and think about what is happening. Somewhere, somehow, there’s been some sin, and guilt has risen to the surface and you are trying to make up for it. You are trying to deal with the matter yourself. 

Unfortunately, it won’t work.

What’s needed at that moment is a conscious decision not to act that way, and to know that you are forgiven by God totally. The cross still stands there as God’s pledge that all guilt has been dealt with. You do not need to try to deal with it yourself by off-loading it onto others.

If you do, then at that point you are being like the ‘foolish Galatians’. You are not at that point being like Abraham, ‘who had faith’. You are saying that God’s cross is not enough to satisfy your conscience.

If you are getting mad at your brother or sister, then it’s because you are mad at God!

Of course, adults get mad too. They get mad at their boss, or the Prime Minister or President, or the Government, or the ‘System’. Husbands get mad at their wives, and wives get mad at their husbands. But in fact they are all mad at God. They are angry with Him. They have their fist in His face.

It is only a day-to-day faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and what He did on that cross, that keeps us at peace and enables us to live each day in harmony with one another- and with ourselves.