Pastor Barry's  "Chapter & Verse"  Day 61

March 2;   Galatians 2:21;   61/260(II);   ‘Righteous By Grace’

Galatians 2:21 I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain."

Religion, which is inspired by the devil, is an incredible enemy of Christianity.  Our nature when we are not Born Again is pride.  Religion appeals to pride, in that religion is man’s way to ‘earn’ heaven by what we do.  Ultimately religion is a slave driver, as a person hopelessly tries to keep an endless list of dos and don’ts that they cannot keep.  The Bible clearly teaches that the Lord instituted the Law, not to be kept, but to show us that we could not keep it.  Once this realization is understood, those desiring a relationship with the Lord must look to Jesus, the only One who could keep the Law.  God’s grace is His love for humanity, doing for humanity, what humanity could not do on its own.  The sin of Adam separated humanity from a holy God.  We had no way back to God the Father since we are sinners and cannot abide in the presence of a holy God.  God’s grace sent Jesus to rescue us from sin and restore a relationship between God the Father and mankind.   Deuteronomy 28 lists the blessings that belong to someone who keeps the Law. In reality those verses could never belong to us, because we are all sinners.  The blessings were written so that we would know what is ours because Jesus kept the Law, not taking the blessings for Himself, but taking the horrific consequences of sin also listed in Deuteronomy 28.  Paul teaches in this verse, that if anyone could keep the Law, the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf was in vain.  Obviously no one could keep or did keep the Law, except Jesus.  We were created to have a relationship with the Father, we lost it, but Jesus got it back for us.  Only Jesus could.