Receiving the Promises | Galatians 3:1–14
We live in a world that runs on performance. Your value is your output. Your worth is your record. Your acceptance depends on what you’ve achieved, acquired, and even what you’ve avoided. Most of us have absorbed this logic so deeply that we’ve brought it straight into our relationship with God without even noticing. We believe in grace. We just don’t quite trust that grace will be enough.
What holds us back:
There is a slow, almost imperceptible slide from trusting God completely to begining to act like we can achieve spiritual progress on our own. Disciplines that started as expressions of faith quietly become the source of our faith. We wake up one day not trusting in Christ alone but in Christ plus religious performance.
The hymnal of the Judaizers might have Paul and Barnabas singing…not “Amazing Grace” but rather, “Amazing circumcision” Not singing “In Christ Alone” but rather, “In Christ plus works, my hope is found”
“They were telling Gentile converts that faith in Jesus was not enough, not sufficient for salvation: they must add to faith circumcision, and to circumcision observance of the law. In other words, they must let Moses complete what Jesus had begun, and let the law supplement the Gospel. The issue was immense.”
—John R.W. Stott, The Message of Acts
How Christ sets us free:
God’s solution isn’t more religious activities, it’s a reconciled relationship with God through faith in Christ. Christ took our sin upon Himself at the cross. He became a curse for us. The promises come by faith — and they always did. You don’t have to achieve what God has already promised as a gift that you simply receive.
“Only grace can work to remind us that faith in God is a resting place and trust in self is a minefield. It is grace and grace alone that empowers us to follow and to rest.”
-Paul Tripp, New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional
Where we can stand:
The promise came first. The blessing is already ours in Christ.
Grace is for the guilty and undeserving.
Mercy is for the helpless and needy.
All of us are all of that, so all of us need grace and mercy.
How we should walk:
Identify one promise from God you’re still trying to earn rather than receive. Practice open-handed prayer over it this week — not asking God to reward your effort, but thanking him for what he’s already secured.
A version of the Jesus prayer:
Lord Jesus Christ
Son of God
Have mercy on me,
A sinner
“When religion has said its last word, there is little that we need other than God Himself. The evil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation. In the ‘and’ lies our great woe. If we omit the ‘and’, we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing.”
—A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God
“I used to think that understanding him was the main thing. It isn’t. The main thing is being loved by him. And that I know.”
–Steve Brown, What Was I Thinking?
Here’s the thing about the Galatians’ mistake — it wasn’t that they stopped believing in Jesus. It’s that they stopped believing Jesus was enough. Receive the promises of God and rest in the love of Jesus Christ for you.
