Why Try To Complicate It?

What makes us right with God? Keeping the law? Being religious? Following a set of prescribed behaviors established by one single denomination? None of these are correct. What makes us right with God is believing in Jesus. Accepting His work on the cross. Trusting in God’s only way to be saved. If we could be made right with God by our own methods, then there is no significance in the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross. This truth, this essential of the Christian faith, should put an end to our vain attempts to earn our salvation; or better stated, to earn brownie points with God. It should clearly show us that humility, love, and gratitude are the only proper responses to God’s grace. Paul makes it crystal clear in today’s passage. It’s that simple, so why try to complicate it?

15 “You and I are Jews by birth, not ‘sinners’ like the Gentiles. 16 Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.”17 But suppose we seek to be made right with God through faith in Christ and then we are found guilty because we have abandoned the law. Would that mean Christ has led us into sin? Absolutely not! 18 Rather, I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down. 19 For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law–I stopped trying to meet all its requirements–so that I might live for God. 20 My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. 21 I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die. Galatians 2:15-21