Where Do You Stand with God?

03/22/25 • 2 min

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You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law.

Galatians 5:4

There will always be something in your flesh that says, “Just give me the rules. Tell me what I have to do.” It feels safer than the unlimited liability of love. Do you see that in yourself?

Can you see how you could lose your freedom in Christ by returning to the law? Can you think of something you do that makes you feel more accepted by God?

Salvation by quiet time: I feel more accepted by God because I have said my prayers.

Salvation by worship: I feel more accepted by God if I feel moved in worship. If I don’t feel moved, it makes me wonder about my relationship with God.

Salvation by service: I feel more accepted by God when I am serving Him. That missions trip really made me feel near to God.

You see where this takes you. You lose your freedom and go back into slavery—the slavery of guilt if you didn’t have your quiet time, the slavery of trying to get the feeling in worship, the slavery of endless activity in the hope of pleasing God.

If you start to reckon your standing before God from the discipline of your prayers, the experience of your worship, the dedication of your service, or anything else you do as a Christian, you are going back to the slavery of the law and alienating yourself from Christ.

Your righteousness, your standing before God, does not rest on your prayers, your worship, your service, or anything that you do for God, but on the righteousness of Christ crucified for you.

Preach to yourself and tell your soul, “I am a son (or daughter) of God, not a slave. I will live this day in the freedom of the Spirit.”

You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law.

Galatians 5:4

There will always be something in your flesh that says, “Just give me the rules. Tell me what I have to do.” It feels safer than the unlimited liability of love. Do you see that in yourself?

Can you see how you could lose your freedom in Christ by returning to the law? Can you think of something you do that makes you feel more accepted by God?

Salvation by quiet time: I feel more accepted by God because I have said my prayers.

Salvation by worship: I feel more accepted by God if I feel moved in worship. If I don’t feel moved, it makes me wonder about my relationship with God.

Salvation by service: I feel more accepted by God when I am serving Him. That missions trip really made me feel near to God.

Your righteousness, your standing before God, does not rest on your prayers, your worship, your service, or anything that you do for God, but on the righteousness of Christ crucified for you.

Preach to yourself and tell your soul, “I am a son (or daughter) of God, not a slave. I will live this day in the freedom of the Spirit.”

Previous Episode

Why We Are More Comfortable with Law than Love

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?

Galatians 4:21

Why would anyone want to be under the law? Because there is a deep instinct within all of us that wants to limit our liability. That’s why we are sometimes more comfortable with law than we are with love.

Think about the relationship you have with the company that issued your credit card. It is certainly not a relationship of love! You pay them what you owe. Sometimes you may get behind in your payments, and you end up owing them more. But even then, there is a limit to your liability. When you get your statement, you know exactly what you have to do. This is the debt you have incurred. This is what you owe. So, you write your check and you are done. A relationship of love is different. There are no defined payments and no limits.

When it comes to our relationship with God there is a strong instinct in our fallen nature that would prefer a relationship of law. Just tell me what I have to do. What is it? Confess on Sundays, eat fish on Fridays, have a daily quiet time, join a Bible study, get an accountability partner, say prayers with the family. What else? Fasting? How often and how long? Serving? What and where? Giving? How much? Give me the checklist. That is a relationship of law.

Relationships of law have clearly defined limits. Relationships of love have no limits. If God’s Spirit lives in you, you cannot relate to Him on the basis of law, but only on the basis of love. You will find yourself saying, “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”

Have you been trying to relate to God based on a relationship of law rather than love? If so, why do you think He calls you to a relationship of love?

Next Episode

Two Very Different Approaches to Acceptance

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Galatians 5:14

In the book of Galatians, Paul has been telling us that we are no longer under the law. But here he tells us that we have to live a life of love that fulfills the law. That sounds confusing!

Our freedom in Christ is the freedom of the Spirit. This is the freedom to live a life of love that fulfills the law— not as a means to acceptance with God, but as a fruit of acceptance with God. If this sounds like a fine distinction to you, then you need to see the difference.

Imagine a woman who sets her eye on a man and decides that she wants to have him for her husband, so she seduces him. She gives herself to him in the hope that this will draw him into a lasting relationship.

Now consider a second picture. Imagine a woman who meets a man and is captivated by him. Over time, he comes to love her and she comes to love him, and they are married. Then she gives herself to him.

There is all the difference in the world between these two pictures. Giving herself to the man in order to make him her husband is a dark kind of manipulation. Giving herself to the man because he is her husband is the natural fruit of the relationship and is a thing of great beauty.

Any attempt to use the law to secure a relationship with God is sheer manipulation, and it will not work, for no one manipulates God. Fulfilling the law freely by living a life of love is the natural fruit of a relationship with God. It is a beautiful expression of our freedom in Christ.

Do you view your good works as the fruit of your faith or the means to acceptance by God?

Really think about your answer. God wants the first and not the second.