Good afternoon Church,

It has been nice to have this beautiful week of warm weather in the fall. I hope you are getting a chance to enjoy it.

I wanted to share with you a devotional based on last week’s message. 

We all as humans have a tendency to overestimate our own abilities. We see this tendency demonstrated in the dangers of gambling. Many people go to Las Vegas hoping that they can somehow defy the odds and strike it rich. Even though they know that the likelihood of winning is low, and the house always wins, entire fortunes are lost, and people are bankrupted every year seeking the next big win. This is dangerous for our finances, but how much more so our spiritual lives. We are all born thinking we will somehow make it, and that we can defy the odds. We admit we make mistakes, but in the end, we believe we just need to do our best and everything will be okay. Every year souls are lost believing they will make it somehow. We lose everything when our confidence in ourselves blinds us to reality. 

Standing against our foolish self-confidence, we have God’s testimony in Scripture that by our own efforts, we will not be saved. These words of Paul from last week’s passage in Galatians ring out loud and clear, “by works of the law no one will be justified” (Galatians 2:16). This was true for the Jews of Paul’s time; it was true of the Galatians and it is true of every man and woman living since. No amount of law keeping, or good works can make us right with God.

Coming to this point of realization is crucial. As long as you put your hope in yourself or your own goodness, you won’t look to Christ. It’s only once you come face to face with the hard reality that you are a sinner without hope in this world that you see the wonder and beauty of Christ slain for sinners. The thief experienced this moment of realization on the cross as he understood the punishment he was receiving was just, and that his only hope was to look to Jesus (Luke 23:41). It’s an amazing moment! The cross that one moment before looked irrelevant, strange, and even offensive, the next became precious and good news beyond belief.

It’s at this moment when we see our spiritual bankruptcy in ourselves and look to Christ that we die, as Paul puts it. In that moment, we are crucified with Christ. Our old self dies, and we are raised with Christ. Now we live by faith. We no longer put our hope in ourselves, our good works, or our ability to somehow make it; we put our hope solely in Christ and his blood shed for us. We don’t live hoping we will be saved. We live knowing that Christ has saved us and that He dwells in us (Galatians 2:20).

Are you still hoping in your own goodness this week? We all have the tendency along with Peter and the Galatians to slip back into old ways rather than embrace our new life in Christ. I want to lay before us three signs that indicate we are still putting hope in ourselves rather than looking to Christ.

Old ways:

• We try to justify ourselves by the good we do. We keep careful accounts of the good things we are doing and have done in the hopes it will cover the bad things we have done.
• We feel the need to compare ourselves with others. We tear other people down and criticize them in order to build ourselves up and make us feel better about ourselves.
• We refuse to admit our responsibility for sin, but instead make excuses, blaming everyone and everything else.

On the other hand, here are three signs that show us we are living with Paul the new life in Christ.

New way:

• We live as those who have been made right with God. All our good works are done out of love and thanksgiving for what God has done for us, and because we want to be like him.
• We don’t feel the need to compare ourselves with others. We build others up and seek to draw them to God just as God has drawn us to himself.
• We don’t excuse or hide sin. Instead, we confess it, renounce it as belonging to our old way of life and we put it to death.

Look carefully at these signs and ask God to show you if there are areas which he is calling you to change. Ask for his grace to enable you to live the life to which he has called you. May God help us to live the new life that he has purchased for us in Christ this week.

In Christ,
Taylor Ewert