Here’s the question.

How am I going to justify myself to God someday?

Do you think that you are going to stand in front of God and list off a whole bunch of stuff that you have done, and do you think that will get you “good enough” to get into heaven?

Or how about telling God that you have given large amounts of money to the church?

Here’s the secret.

Your answer will be nothing that you can physically do.

After Jesus died on the cross and rose again, the apostles wrestled between doing the Law, like they had been doing for many, many years, or having faith.

Paul helped the churches in that time to see that the Law only makes us realize that we can’t keep it. We need something else to cover our sins and justify us for heaven. That something is Jesus’ shed blood on the cross.

But how do you know that really happened? That’s where faith comes into play. Faith is believing in something that you can’t see. Paul used the example of Abraham and Noah. They each were justified by their faith, that Jesus’ blood would cleanse us of our unrighteousness, and make us, in God’s eyes, like we’ve never sinned before.

Today’s lesson from Galatians 2: 15-21 unveils to us the reasons that keeping the Law is not required for our own justification and cleansing from our sins.