Continue The Way You Began - October 28

Read Galatians 3:3-6

Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

Reflect

What does Paul cite as the source and power of our life transformation? Are we perfected by the works we complete in the flesh or by the Holy Spirit that we received through faith in Christ?

If you have been following along with us through the book of Galatians, then you know that Paul has made the case that salvation is only possible when we place our faith in Christ and there is nothing we can do to add or take away from what He did for us on the cross. Paul has been refuting the teachings of the Judaizers as they attempted to mix the law with the grace of Christ.

In today’s verses, he continued to express his frustration that many of the believers were buying the lies of the Judaizers. He said, “Are you so foolish?” We might read that and think that he was being a little harsh toward the Galatians. After all, they’d been deceived. But Paul is probably feeling a lot like a frustrated parent at this point. In essence, he’s saying, “Guys, we’ve gone over and over this! You know better! How could you be so foolish as to fall for this when you’ve been taught the truth!” The fact is, the Galatians weren’t stupid. They did know better. But they were being spiritually lazy and had let their guards down. They weren’t evaluating new teaching but were just accepting it without thinking!

Paul consistently taught all throughout his epistles that we are saved by grace. In Titus 3:5, Paul taught that our salvation and rebirth in Christ is a work of the Holy Spirit: “He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” Our new life in Christ didn’t begin because of our righteousness or our works of the law.

Our new life in Christ began by the Spirit. So why wouldn’t we continue to live in the Spirit? Our flesh couldn’t save us so why in the world would we think that our flesh could perfect us and make us like Christ? It is absurd to think that in our flesh, by our own power, we might think that we can make ourselves like a perfectly holy God! How foolish!

The truth is that works of righteousness have never been able to save us. Even in the Old Testament, before Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross for us, people were saved by believing that God was going to send His Messiah to save them just as He promised. Abraham was righteous, not because he did righteous deeds but because he believed God and it was counted as righteous.

John MacArthur put it this way in his commentary on Galatians: “If a person has received eternal salvation through trust in the crucified Christ, received the fullness of the Holy Spirit the same moment he believed, and has the Father’s Spirit-endowed power working within him, how could he hope to enhance that out of his own insignificant human resources by some meritorious effort?”

Friend, if you are trying to obtain your salvation apart from Christ based on your own works, you are striving in vain! If you are already a believer, never buy into any lies that you need to do anything to somehow improve upon the work of Christ on the cross. It is an exercise in futility. You were saved by the Holy Spirit, You are filled with the Holy Spirit, so now, continue to live in the power of the Holy Spirit. Continue on the way you began!

Respond

Lord, I confess that at times, I am spiritually lazy. I accept positive sounding ideas without evaluating to ensure that they line up with Your truth. Protect me, Lord, from the lies of the enemy. Lead me and transform my life by the power of Your Holy Spirit. Amen.

Reveal

Think about someone in your life who’s working hard to “hold it all together”—maybe a friend trying to prove themselves at work, a parent juggling too much, or even someone who feels like they’ve failed spiritually. Instead of offering advice, try sharing a small story from your own life about a time you realized you couldn’t fix everything on your own. Let them see that you understand what it’s like to run out of strength—and that sometimes the best thing we can do is stop striving and breathe. Then, offer to do something restorative together: take a walk, share a meal, or simply sit and listen. When you show someone that peace doesn’t come from perfection but from grace, you quietly model what it looks like to live by the Spirit, not by sheer effort.