Grace, Not Religious Servitude

Good day people. Hope you had a good weekend. It’s the beginning of a new week and I hope you are ready to walk in victory in all the tasks and circumstances you will face.

We will proceed in our Galatians’ journey exploring God’s amazing grace:

“You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.” Galatians 4:10 & 11 New International Version

One main feature of Judaism was a legalistic observance of special days, months and years. The practice had started as special days to mark the different Jewish festivals and there were many of such festivals in the Mosaic Law. But in addition to these, the Jews had added several others. For example they had days to commemorate the destruction and rebuilding of the temple, and other important events in Jewish history. 

Observing a special day isn’t a problem (see Romans 14:5-6). The problem was that people’s spirituality was being evaluated based on observance of such mere religiosities. The Galatians had fallen prey to such belief system and Paul was obviously not happy about the situation. In fact, he was wondering whether his work among them had not been a wasted effort (verse 11).

“Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come, the reality, however, is found in Christ.” Colossians 2:16, 17 

The temptation sometimes is very subtle. We probably don’t have much of observance of special feast days in the contemporary Christian world but there are shades of powerless religiosity in other forms that are present with us till this moment. There are many man-made regulations on food, clothing and rules about worship that really have no real significance in God’s dealings with us. Many of them are really just superficial, external veneers that do not matter with God and we must not allow them take precedence over the reality of God in our hearts. 

Remember as Colossians 2:17 says, all those regulations in the Old Testament were shadows of things to come; things that have now come because the substance is here-Christ Jesus Himself. We must refuse to return to that pattern of bondage. We are free from all that now.

Let me say it in another way: the grace of God has ensured that faith alone in Christ is adequate. You are complete in Him (Colossians 2:10) so you do not have to look elsewhere for any further additions. It is really that simple-that is why it is grace! Don’t be tempted to believe otherwise. Just focus on Jesus and on the grace of God revealed to us through Him.

My song for the week is “Grace is enough” by Don Moen.

The liberty we have from such religious forms of servitude and our completeness in Christ are together another snapshot of the awesome grace of God. Live in that reality. Have a beautiful week. 

"Grace is enough" by Don Moen