Paul was not impressed with them and called them foolish and reminded them that their salvation was received by faith not by works (Galatians 3:1). He reminded them that those who relied on observing the law were under a curse (3:10) but thank God, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (3:13). He made sure that they remembered that no one is justified (made right with God) by observing the law but by faith (3:11).
You may be confident that you are not receiving your salvation by works but by faith but there is one more important point to look at. Paul says in Galatians 4: 4 ‘God sent his son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.’ So often Christians are justified by faith and yet never receive the full rights of sons.
The older brother in the story of the prodigal son was like that. When he complained in anger to the father about his generosity to the younger, prodigal brother he said, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends’(Luke 15: 29). He was a son of the Father and yet he had never received the full rights of a son because he had tried slaving for them and earning them by his own efforts.
Our full rights of sons are not earned – they are received. It is not by our own efforts that we receive them but by God’s wonderful love and grace. So often we think we must do something; pray, read our Bibles, witness (all of which are marvellous things) in order for God to love and use us more. God loves us completely already; you cannot earn any of it. We must stop looking at our Christian walk as a series of achievements and instead see it as a deepening relationship with our loving heavenly Father. Let us receive the full rights of sons – children of Almighty God – with all the blessings that entails.
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