Paul confronts Peter...and me

I'm in mid exam week, and let's just say its serious crunch time. I feel as though I've been distant from the Lord for a few days because my focus has been else where, trying to handle tons of school things, finding a job, etc, etc, etc! Today, after spending some much needed time with Jesus, I find myself so, so consumed by an awesome message, and I wanted just to share my thoughts here.

I read Galatians 2:11-21, and then my notes from my bible study earlier this year. In this passage, Paul speaks about how he had to speak to Peter in Antioch. Paul had to speak up to him because Peter was in the wrong; he was living like a Gentile but calling himself a Jew, and thus bending the rules. Peter was leading people astray from the Gospel, and Paul, a servant of the Lord, was chosen to speak to Peter.

Verse 16 says, "Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law." The law that is mentioned here is all about the custom of circumcision for salvation. Paul knows that circumcision or nothing else have anything to do with "being made right with God." All that matters is faith!

Just that simple thought ("All that matters is faith") makes me smile. This means that I'm not expected by God to do anything else in this world except to have faith. He knows that we are not perfect, and that we are human. He knows that even having faith is a huge, touch thing when Satan constantly pulls us the other way. What an amazing thing it is that because Jesus came, walked this same Earth we walk today, and then He died for OUR sins, we are saved and made holy!

My favorite verse, Colossians 1:22, says "Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault." God has brought us into his presence, not vice versa. We can't do anything to gain salvation. All we are called to do is to have faith. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says that we are a new creation in Christ. We can't become a new creation from anything else. Only Christ can do that. I hope that simple reminder makes you smile too. Just pray that it may take some pressure off of you and whatever you feel pressed or required to do. Nothing is required of you except to have faith, to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind," as Luke 10:27 tells us.