What Does Faith Look Like?

But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:17-20 ESV).

 

Yesterday I emphasized the truth that Jesus is the Builder of the Church. He is the One who calls and equips every believer. Today’s reading gives a testimony of what it means to be a believer. Here Paul gets deeply personal about his relationship with Christ. He uses “I” several times to describe his own faith and trust in the Savior. It is a testimony we should read carefully, taking it to heart and applying it in our daily lives.

 

Paul explains earlier that he was once a severe legalist. He believed he could keep the law perfectly and be righteous before God, but that was impossible. There’s no way we can ever make ourselves right with God. We are made righteous only through believing a promise—that Jesus’ blood, shed on the cross, pays the whole debt of our sin. Jesus fulfilled all the requirements of the law for us, and he is the only One who could do that because he never broke the law. He was totally without sin.

 

So, Paul learned, by grace, that he had to stop thinking he could earn salvation by trying to keep the law. Instead, he said, he had to die to the law to live for God. And he identified so closely with Jesus that he testified, “I have been crucified with Christ”—as if his own body had been stretched on the cross. So now, said Paul, his old way of life was dead: “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” This is the good news! We are not our own but are grafted into him who lives in us (cf. John 15).

 

Today as you go about your regular routine, will your words and actions be as Jesus’ words and actions? It is a question worth asking and honestly answering. If these are not like Him, perhaps our faith needs to be examined as well.