Walking In Grace

Enoch walked with God…Genesis 5:4

Like Noah after him, Enoch chose to live by faith. According to history, Genesis 6:5, most people did not make this choice. They chose instead, to do their own thing. For them, their choices were wicked, evil, sinful. Among the many exceptions, like you, there existed people like Enoch, Noah, and Noah’s family. Like us, the lovers of God were few.

It is to these few, the church, that Paul writes in Galatia. The churches there had problems, as do most church assemblies. They, like us, were having trouble with the flesh; what do we do when we sin? 

Galatians 2:17: But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not! Well, those words are close to home. We ask, “Paul, what do we do when we sin while in Christ?”  Paul answers.

Galatians 2:18: For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. How did Paul know? How did he know we would try to fix the problem ourselves? We don’t. We fall, we get up, and we say, “I need to try harder.” Or words to that effect. Some in Galatia were turning back to Judaism, righteousness by the law, to them Paul writes: For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God, verse 19.

Verse 20 is the correct solution to their and our problem; a new way of thinking. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. Maybe today is the day we say these words again. As a reminder of who we are. 

Yes, we are in Christ. And yes, we are still in the flesh, our bodies. But no, we don’t look elsewhere for renewal, for restoration, for reinstatement, for a new resource to our human state. We look to God: our Redeemer. Here is His reminder: I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. Verse 21