Accepted By Grace

Hello everyone, I hope you all had a nice weekend. It is a new week and in this post I will ask us to turn our minds back to the subject of the beauty of God’s grace as we continue drawing from Paul’s letter to the Galatians.

“When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, ‘You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? We who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners know that a man is not justified by observing the law but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.” Galatians 2: 14-16 NIV

I would like us to focus on verses 15 and 16; they remind us of something so powerfully true. No one can be justified by observing the law, no one! The Israelites for example pursued righteousness through the law but they did not and will not obtain righteousness that way. The Gentiles who did not pursue it have obtained it-a righteousness that is by faith^{1, 2, and 3}. This is a reality we must always remember. It is not a suggestion or a proposal we may choose to accept or reject based on our own whims. Justification is by faith and will never come by an observance of rules or codes of conduct.

Bildad (one of Job's friends) asked a question many centuries ago. He asked "How, then, can man be righteous before God?" in Job 25:4. It is a question that men in every generation including ours have always asked. This is so because one of the universal human hurts is guilt. People in every land and in every age feel it. There is just a gnawing feeling of guilt present in the heart of every man.

This feeling of guilt is usually so real and so powerful that man tries to overcome it in one way or another. Some people try mental exercises like positive thinking while some try drugs or alcohol or some other means of escape. Religious rites of ancient cultures were probably also a response to the burden of guilt. The sacrifices they offered perhaps gave them some measure of relief from guilt. Modern man is more cultured and so he seeks his own relief in modern psychology.

God's message of grace rings out loudly as an answer to Bildad’s question for all sets of people everywhere and in every culture. We all need justification. We all need release from that guilt. It is only when we accept His grace in Christ Jesus that we hear God's voice whispering tenderly to our hearts "You are not guilty anymore. I have accepted you to Myself because of My grace."

Friends, we have been justified by faith, accepted by God and not by any good we did or could have done by our own selves. We got it freely through God’s grace in Jesus Christ. My song of the week is "Not Guilty Anymore" by Aaron Keyes. I hope you will not only enjoy it but that the words bring an affirmation of God's astounding grace to your heart. Have a splendid week.

Notes:
1. Romans 1:17
2. Romans 9:30-32
3. Romans 10:6
 

"Not Guilty Anymore" by Aaron Keyes