November 5 - Just-if-I’d Never Sinned

 Read today’s texts first: Job 26,27; Galatians 1-2

 MAXIMize YOUR DAY

If you want others to see you as justified,
start seeing them that way! 

Job’s analogy that compares the pursuit of God’s wisdom to mining for jewels, certainly applies to the truth of justification by faith, revealed by Paul in his opening remarks to the churches of Galatia.  It was such a deep concept that many of the early Christians didn’t fathom it.  The legalistic Judaizers saw the conditions of the law (like circumcision) on the surface and thought Paul was ignoring them.  Somehow they must have forgotten the Paul that was at one time, Saul - the most legalistic Pharisee of them all.  But Paul’s subsequent three-year “Bible College” stint in Arabia allowed him to dig deeper, to find the Spirit beneath the law, the hidden wisdom that centered on Christ fulfilling the requirements of the law for us.

I grew up in a church that values holiness.  I remember my mother reacting with horror to a cigarette butt sitting on the top of the church steps.  While that moment helped keep me from smoking later in life it also revealed an attitude that kept smokers from finding Jesus at our church.  In fact, few people were being saved at this time in the life of our church.  We tended to put people through a grid before they could join our “Christian club,” expecting them to clean up their act and put on a nice suit before they could really be accepted (that is overstated to make a point – my parents were extremely hospitable to our unsaved friends and neighbours).

The point is, conformity to the law does not save us.  In fact, it is impossible to conform to the law without the power of God’s Spirit resident within us.  But how can we approach a holy God while still in our sin.  That’s the wisdom of the gospel; Christ died for us while we were yet sinners.  We can come to Him as we are through faith in Christ and experience not only forgiveness but salvation, complete deliverance, from our sin.  In fact, this is the only way we can be saved.

“Lord, sometimes my holiness background kicks in and I find myself trying to disciple others through legalistic conformity instead of spiritual transformation.  Conforming to the law does not bring release from past sins, but Christ on the cross does.  Those who put their faith in Him stand fully justified – “just-if-I’d” never sinned.  That’s the only way I want others to see me so it must become the only way I see others.”