Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Galatians 3:2 (MSG)
The Old Testament laws of Moses served a purpose. They highlighted how sinful humanity is (Romans 3:20, Galatians 3:19) and pointed the Jews toward the need for a Saviour (Galatians 3:21-23).
But the laws could not make people right with God. Working so hard to please God through their own efforts left them exhausted. That’s why works-based religion has nothing on the freedom Jesus offers.
The Apostle Paul gives a great example of the difference between the two. In Acts 22:3-4, Paul acknowledged that he was fanatical in his devotion to performance-based religion. Yet once Paul encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus, his heart was opened to the truth.
Suddenly, Paul could see that trying to please God through ceremonial laws and customs only held him in bondage. In Galatians 2:16 (MSG), Paul states, “We are not set right with God by rule-keeping but only through personal faith in Jesus Christ. How do we know? We tried it—and we had the best system of rules the world has ever seen!”
He admits that “to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God” (Galatians 2:21, MSG).
You see, through Christ, Paul discovered something that his years of religious rule-following had never given him: the freedom and immeasurable joy of a close, personal relationship with God.
Legalistic religion doesn’t hold a candle to the incomparable freedom and loving relationship available to us through Jesus!
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