…for through faith you are all sons of God in Christ Jesus.
For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus…
And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father!”
So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then God has made you an heir. (Galatians 3:26-28; 4:6-7)
If there was one message some of the Jewish Christians were giving the Galatian Christians, it was this: You’re not in yet. You’re not accepted yet. There’s more you have to do before God will accept you.
And so Paul makes it crystal clear: You are already in. You are already accepted.
Not based on your “performance.”
But based on the fact that by faith, you have embraced your King.
What broke our relationship with God was that we had rejected him as King.
What repairs it is embracing Jesus as our King. We embrace him because we trust him. We trust that he is good, that he loves us, and knows and desires our best. We believe he proved all that by going to the cross for our sins.
And so as time goes on, our thoughts and actions start to align themselves to that belief.
That’s what it means to live by faith.
Abraham was that way. He failed so many times, mostly because his trust in God would often temporarily slip. (Genesis 15-20)
But he kept coming back to this one truth: God is worthy of my trust.
And as time went on, his every thought and action started to align themselves more and more to that belief. (Genesis 21-24)
That’s why God credited Abraham’s faith with righteousness. That’s why he accepted him, flawed though Abraham was. God knew where Abraham’s faith would lead.
I’m still not the man I ought to be. I probably never will be as long as I live on this earth.
But God accepts me. I’m already in.
Not because of my performance.
But because deep down, I trust him.
And that’s enough for him.
Can you say the same?