When I was a child, I was taught the rules of our home. There are certain things you do and things you don’t do. When I went to school, I was taught the rules of school. The principals and teachers taught us what was allowed at school and what was not. When I went to church with my grandmother, she taught me what to do and not to do at church.
In all of these settings, I knew what was right and wrong. In all of these settings, I did both what was right and what was wrong. When I broke the rules, I was spanked as a child. Most of us in my generation were to some degree or another. I got spankings at home. I got paddled at school, from teachers, to the principal, and on down to my bus driver. My sweet grandmother who never raised her voice, even gave me a pop at church. She told me that I said, “Nanny, I deserved that” and it made her feel like “a sheep killing dog.”
I broke the rules in all of these settings yet I was never disqualified from love and kindness. My parents, my teachers, and my grandmother still loved me even though I had broken the rules in each of these areas of my childhood. That is because my love and my relationships with these important people didn’t stand on me keeping the rules. My relationship with all of them stood on love.
In Galatians 2, Paul is relaying an important truth of our faith, the central truth of justification. We are made right with God, not by keeping the rules, but by our faith in Jesus Christ. Paul says it like this, “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of 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 the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.” Galatians2:15–16NIV
Our relationship with God stands on our faith in Jesus Christ, not on our keeping the law. Because of love, God sent Jesus to die for sinners. Because of love, God accounts the righteousness of Christ to us when we put our faith in him. We are right with God solely based on our faith in Jesus Christ, and that faith is a gift given to us because God so loved the world. Paul closes chapter 2 this way, “… The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians2:20NIV
If you have broken a rule or two, don’t disqualify yourself from being justified by God. The love and kindness we enjoy from God our Father, comes from faith in Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us. That is Good News!
Prayer:
Heavenly Father, Thank you for your love and kindness to me even when I broke your law! Thank you for Jesus Christ who loved me and gave himself for me! Help me to respond to your loving kindness by living in your will for my life. Amen.
Thinking About and Being a Child of God 