Justified by law

  Prayer Practice

Breath Prayer – Take 2-3 minutes today to pray a simple breath prayer. Get somewhere quiet and relaxing. Breathe in deeply, and then breathe out fully. As you breathe in, ask God to fill you with His presence, grace, love, peace, etc. Consider using the list of spiritual fruit in Galatians 5:22-23. As you breathe out, offer to God the things you need Him to take from you – sin, doubt, shame, anxiety, fear, etc. Pray this way for just a few minutes, trusting God to work, and then begin reading today’s Scripture.

DAILY READING

Galatians 5

REFLECTION

Freedom from the Law

 by Kelsey Bacon

Before you read this devotion, I encourage you to go back to Galatians 5 and read verses 1-6. For although the issue of circumcision doesn't have much meaning to us today, there's a lot we can relate to in the heart of the issue, and the context of the above verses is very important.

"You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope." Galatians 5:4-5

I think it can sometimes be easy for us as Christians to overlook how we rely on the law. We know it our heads and say with our mouths that Jesus is the one who saves us, but when it comes down to our hearts and our actions, how often do we instead live as if we are bound by the law?

Let me give you an example. When I was in college (I graduated four years ago), I read my Bible and journaled every single day for years. Since leaving college, I haven't had that same consistent pattern. For about two years after graduating, I looked back on that time with jealousy and was so angry with myself that I couldn't seem to get myself back to that pattern. I felt like I wasn't a good enough Christian, like I was failing God and myself. And then an interesting thing happened. I went back through my old college journals and read them. I discovered a common thread through much of my writing that showed how, even though I was reading my Bible and journaling every day, I still back then felt like I wasn't doing enough. I felt like I wasn't a good enough Christian, that I could never be as faithful, loyal, or spiritual as the people I was reading about in the Bible. Even though I was in God's Word every day, I still felt like I wasn't a good enough Christian.

Now I'm not here to tell you that you shouldn't care about reading your Bible or praying or any other spiritual practice; God calls us to those things and those practices certainly deepen our relationship with God and teach us more about him. But in reflecting, I saw that no matter what I did, I felt like I wasn't good enough or that I wasn't doing enough. I was bearing a yolk that Jesus did not place on my shoulders. I was trying to find freedom and salvation in spiritual practices. And while those practices can bring us closer to Jesus, they are not themselves Jesus. Just like the Galatians felt burdened by the law, I felt burdened by my own actions--and that was because I was equating my faith and God's love for me to what I was doing or not doing. I was consumed by what I needed to do to get closer to God. When the reality is that God is already within me, as close as he can be. And it has nothing to do with what I've done and everything to do with what he did on the cross.

This is the purpose of Paul's words here. To remind us that our actions do not save us. Jesus saves us. Following the law, while right and good to try and do, does not save us because inevitably we will break it. And if we are relying on law, on rules, on standards to show us our worth, then we will always find ourselves worthless because we will never live up to them. This is why the Bible tells us that Jesus fulfilled the law. He completed it, he lived up to it. And we are to live in this knowledge so that we can know the freedom that comes in Christ--the freedom not to be burdened by trying to measure up, but to receive the forgiveness that brings eternal life.

Reflect: Where in your life might you be living under the burden of the law? Pray and ask the Lord to reveal this in you. Pray also and thank him for the freedom you have in him, and ask him to remind you of that freedom every day.