"What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my
head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man"
so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled
me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have
been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer
important that I appear righteous before you
or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God.
Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is
lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I
am not going to go back on that.
Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily."
- Galatians 2:19-21, The Message
Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily."
- Galatians 2:19-21, The Message
