God is Love, So I'm Okay - Right?

I used to think I was a pretty good person.  I didn't steal, I tried not to lie, I helped other people.  I certainly didn't murder anyone.  I was a good person, more often than not.  I used the think that was enough...God is love, so I was okay.  Right?

What I never thought about, was Jesus.  If I could be "good enough", then why did He have to die on the cross?  The problem with my thinking was that I could never be or do enough good to make myself acceptable to God.  I didn't lie much, but if I'm honest with myself, I still lied now and then.  I didn't always help other people...I wasn't always nice to my parents, let alone honoring to them.  Sometimes I got really jealous when someone else had something I wanted for myself!  I was/am/always will be far from perfect.  I can't possibly keep all of the rules that God laid out for us in Exodus.  Nobody can.  That's why He gave them to us...to show us our need for Him.  For Jesus.

In Galatians 2, we can see how dangerous it is to believe what I used to...thinking I could earn God's love through my actions.  Verse 21 lays it all out on the line "...for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"

But He did die.  On the cross.  For me, and for you!  Our verse this week is actually Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."  Our sins died with Him on the cross.  He paid it all.  Our debt, the cost for our sin, should be death (Romans 6:23).  God is love, though, and He made a way out...to redeem us with Christs blood on the cross.

I am no longer who I used to be...struggling in my own efforts.  Christ is in me.  The resurrection power of Christ - it is my strength to live this life in a new way - for Him.  I'm not saying all of a sudden I am perfect because I live by faith in Jesus - not even close!  But He is at work, in me, changing my heart, my mind, and my actions through His great love.