“What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you 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? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.”
Galatians 2:20 MSG – A verse of the day from the Bible presented in Eugene Peterson’s contemporary version called The Message. Accompanied by a personal reflection below.
This ain’t no “rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion,” folks — this is a “living relationship” between God and me. If you thought you could do it on your own, i.e., living the righteous life and keeping every known and made rule to look and feel good, why then would you need God to do anything at all for you? You would be self-sufficient and would find your way around in this life as well as the after-life, but you can’t do it on your own. That is what Paul is saying here. Paul tried it as have many others before and after him, and arrived at the conclusion that it is futile doing so. I could not agree more! And that last line of his says it all, “If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.” What are you doing, gentle reader?
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