What Really Matters To God
Galatians 5:6 When someone belongs to Christ Jesus, it is not important if they are circumcised or not. The important thing is faith-the kind of faith that works through love.
In this world, there’s right and there’s wrong. And yet, it’s all too easy, to become so fixated on what’s right, that you end up, turning it into a wrong.
It’s good to have a healthy sense of right and wrong. But have you ever noticed how easy it is to turn that into a rigid set of rules? That’s often what “religion” does. Where Christ came to set us free, religion wants to tie us up in a straightjacket of “do’s” and “don’ts”.
Speaking about the religious leaders of His day, Jesus said this:
Matthew 23:4 They make strict rules that are hard for people to obey. They try to force others to obey all their rules.
So, what’s the answer? How do you live in freedom, without slipping into rule-based religion? This is how the Apostle Paul put it:
Galatians 5:6 When someone belongs to Christ Jesus, it is not important if they are circumcised or not. The important thing is faith-the kind of faith that works through love.
In other words, it’s not the rules that matter. Circumcision was part of the Old Testament law. But following the letter of the law isn’t what matters.
What matters to God, is that we believe in Him, that we trust in Him, that we live out our lives with a vibrant faith in Him, a faith that works its way out, through love for others.
It is just so easy to turn God’s love into a bunch of rules. It really is. Do this. Don’t do that. Kneel. Go to church. Eat this. Don’t drink that. Rules.
But this God who sent us His Son, isn’t so much interested in rules. What really counts for Him, is our faith, working through love. Relationship, not rules.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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Dan
But a changed renewed heart should affect how we live. Remember, God looks on the heart, but our outside is all that ...
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But a changed renewed heart should affect how we live. Remember, God looks on the heart, but our outside is all that men can see – so what are our actions telling a lost world about who is in our hearts? No, rules will not save you, but salvation should change you into a new creature. Old things have passed away and all things have become new – does the world see that? Do co-workers see a new you? Does your family see a new you? We have been transformed – are we truly transformed or do we continue to conform to the lost world we were just saved from? If I am not living as a transformed, new creature, why did I become new to begin with?
Clara Ullyott
I have been so worried that bad things will happen if I did not do the right thing, think the right way etc and that I ...
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I have been so worried that bad things will happen if I did not do the right thing, think the right way etc and that I would be to blame. I mean its all about choices right and if I make the wrong choices I am responsible for the consequences. I forgot about unconditional love and that the only thing that matters is faith expressed in love. Thanks for reminding me that his love for me never changes and that I have the freedom to make mistakes and to fail but I am always forgiven. My righteousness is secure in what Jesus did not in anything I can do. If I have negative circumstances in my life I do not have to blame myself anymore. Jesus said that there is no more condemnation for those in Christ.
William Bene K. Manasseh
That is why I found my freedom by taking salvation and He leading me to James 1:26-27
That is why I found my freedom by taking salvation and He leading me to James 1:26-27