the Gospel

Recently, I've spent a significant amount of time going through the book of Galatians. I find it very sobering and a constant reminder of what it means to live through the power of the Holy Spirit which enables us to live a life that is based on Christ's righteousness rather than our own. Paul was astonished and baffled at the Galatian believers who were being infiltrated by the Judaizers who were preaching a totally false pseudo-Gospel that required the Gentile believers to undergo circumcision and observe the law of Moses in order to obtain salvation. This is classic religion which requires man to observe or work for his righteousness in order to appease a holy God. This is also known as pride and usually results in a life of despair or misery because you are trying in your own strength to achieve the impossible. Religion says, if I obey God he will love me. The Gospel says, because God loves me I can obey. It's only because Jesus Christ chose to come down here to this fallen planet, take on the form of a human, live a perfect life, die the death on the cross that I should have died taking my place, shedding His blood to appease a Holy God that requires nothing less than righteousness, defeating death once and for all and making atonement for all my sin past, present, and future, who has thereby based on my belief through faith credited my account with His righteousness and given me the Holy Spirit as a guarantee that I will someday be fully glorified spending an eternity in His presence in which He is now seated at the right hand of the Father awaiting the proper time in which He will return for me and resurrect my body to spend an eternity in worship and adoration at His feet. You see, not only is salvation by grace alone through Jesus, but sanctification is by grace alone as well. I can do NOTHING to appease God even after I become a disciple of Jesus. It is based solely on the completed work of Christ being applied to my account. Jesus lived the perfect life I could not live. Jesus fulfilled the Law that I could not keep. Jesus paid the cost and penalty for the sin that I could not pay. Jesus conquored a death that I could not conquor. It's all about Jesus and when I stand before God one day the only reason I will be there wil be because of Jesus. That is my only answer. I have done nothing in my life to earn any favor with God whatsoever. It's simply based on the fact that when God views my life He views Christ's righteousness.

Can you see now why Paul was so astonished? He had given the Galatians the full Gospel and they had acknowledged it at one point in time, but were so shallow that they were once again turning to a works-based religion! We are GUILTY of this as well. Every time we do anything to try to earn favor with God or man we are reverting to a false Gospel. The Gospel is a lifestyle that must be constantly lived out of each and every day. That's why we have been given the Holy Spirit. To convict us of our underlying false motives so that we in turn can confess or acknowledg our sin, repent and turn away from our sin, and bask in the grace of God by living a life of obedience by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the true Gospel! Let's live it out each and every day!