December 8, 2021: Do We Live by The Law of God or By Our Faith in Jesus, and the Law of God as Well?

I have come to better understand why so many of us, as Christians, struggle with living and walking a good Christian life. We want to do good and please God because of what He has done for us. That is good and commendable, but God does not ask that of us. He wants us to receive His free gift of eternal life, and trust in the work of Jesus, and then leave the rest of the work to Him.

If we keep trying to please God with doing these good things, there lies the problem. In the Book of Romans, the Apostle Paul speaks about this very subject...trying to live up to the law of God and trying to please Him and be a good person for the wrong reasons.

Romans 7: 1-2 (NIV)

Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? 2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him.

So what Paul is saying here is that if we remain alive to the "Law of God", we will continue fail God in our walk with Him. We cannot live up to the "Law". We must "die to self" and live by faith is Jesus Christ. Just as a wife is no longer bound to her husband because of his death, we are no longer bound to the Law of God, if we die to self. Jesus fulfilled the Law for us when He died on the cross. We no longer live to the law...We only must have faith in Jesus Christ in what He already did for us. That's it! Simple, but sometimes hard to grasp in the simplicity of God's gift.

If as we keep trying to do good and try to please God, we will fail. We must allow the Holy Spirit to do the work through us. There is the difference..."None of Us, All of Him". Read the following in verses 5-6 in Romans:

Romans 7: 5-6 (NIV)

For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been "released from the law" so that we serve in "the new way of the Spirit", and not in the old way of the written code.

What a great freedom and peace that gives us in our walk with God now. We do not have to do any work of trying to be good, except rest in our Lord, draw close to Him, be in His word daily, and allow the Holy Spirt to "lead us" in everything we do.

PERSONNAL COMMENT:

Let us stop living by the flesh in trying to please God...Let us live by the Spirit and let Him do the work through us. And the only way to do this is by "complete and absolute surrender" of all of ourselves to God. May God give you the peace and will to surrender all to Him.