Unmerited

 "For by Grace you are saved - not of yourself. It is the gift of God". Ephesians 2:8.

I am especially thankful to Jason Micheli for these wonderful thoughts.

The Book of Galatians is proof that despite what we may sing on Sundays, we're addicted to bad news.

Like so many of us, there we read of those who thought they'd advanced to somewhere 'beyond' the simplicity and vitality of the saving Gospel.

In so doing, they had, in effect, abandoned God's actual rescue and reverted back to confidence in the rigours of the Law.

Paul seeks to remind them that there are only two options - rescue by Christ alone, or drowning in the supposed 'merits' of our misguided (and over-bloated) confidence in our (dingy) piety.

There is actually no middle-ground between 'Christ has done everything for you' and 'this is what you must do... perfectly'.

The easiest way to invalidate the Gospel is to try and add to it (and thereby, subtract from its absolute and total sufficiency).

We do this continually by adding on modifiers - progressive spirituality, moral value progress, whole life piety... the 'being all you should be' approach to godliness.

The message of the Gospel is you don't need to do anything beyond seeing what has already been done by God in Jesus. You are then already buried into Christ's death and raised into His resurrection - that is your sure and certain guarantee of belonging to another, forever.

Christ died for all your sins. He is your holiness, righteousness and sanctification. Holiness, now, is about resting in that truth - trusting, relaxing in those astonishing promises.

The truth of this, and this alone, is the good news.

The opposite, then, of sin, is confidence in someone other than us -

Jesus Christ, The Saviour!