Grace Church

It is truly a great blessing to know and be aware that our salvation and our standing on God’s Grace is not determined by how much we do, how far we have or will walk in our faith, or physical acts such as those promoted by the Judaizers to the Galatians. It is also fascinating reading how God used Paul, not Paul through his own will and strength, to remain true to the one and only Gospel for the sake of the Church—but above all God’s Glory.

Reflecting on the passage of Paul taking Titus, a Greek and non-circumcised, before the Council in Jerusalem and how some “false brothers” were corrupting the one Gospel got me thinking about to what extent us, as imperfect and sinning individuals, sometimes become “false brothers” unto ourselves. What may have started out in our lives and our disciplines as something done for God’s Glory, becomes a seal of our religiosity and a stumbling not only for ourselves but also our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. From a personal standpoint, I think much of this had and has to do with my/our human pride and sense of entitlement.

You see, Christ offers and captures us for His great freedom which we receive through faith in Him. However, somewhere within us and somewhere in our quiet pride, we lie to ourselves into the conclusion that Christ isn’t enough but that we need more than Christ’s blood and God’s Grace. Personally, a way in which I “Judaized” myself (if I may turn it into a verb) was by reading, religiously, theology—from Grudem to Athanasius, and from St. Augustine to Sproul. What began as a personal search to understand Scripture and my beloved God became a symbol of my faith to the point I had become a “Judaizer” in my own way by looking down on those who couldn’t lay claim to such knowledge ad understanding. Thankfully, the Lord humbled me in His own way of doing such things and claimed me back to the freedom of Christ and the understanding that His Grace was, is, and will forever be enough for me. Disciplines are great and they can truly be worship to God. However, as I experienced, it becomes the opposite when we sacrifice God’s Grace for our own sense of entitlement to salvation and claims to human efforts of achieving what only God can.