"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" - Galatians 2:20-21
Faith and surrender: I am learning that there is not one without the other. As a Christ-follower, the two go hand in hand. Without one, the other is impossible.
Going back to my Baptist roots, we learned the Ten Commandments. We had to memorize them in, I believe, the fourth grade. We were not just made to memorize the kids' version but the King James Version. For anyone familiar with KJV, there are many "thee and thou" words for a nine-year-old to remember. I digress.
Growing up, I believed that I had 10 rules that I had to obey. I believed that if I broke one of them, God did not love me anymore until I asked His forgiveness. God was scary to me. (Let me add that this is not what was taught to us but rather how I interpreted what I was being told.)
I can remember going through the Ten Commandments each night in bed. I would make a mental list of those I kept and those I broke. I would then pray, tell God that I was sorry, and ask Him to love me again. Luckily I was only a kid and so there were not many that I could break at that age but it still was a great deal of pressure.
My belief system carried over into adulthood where I struggled with never measuring up to what God required. I just did not understand how any human being could go through their day, much less their life, without breaking one of these rules. So many times, I felt defeated and unloved. What a lie. Just what Satan desired.
Part of my rediscovery was revisiting some of my earlier writings and being reminded of things God had shown me over the past couple of years. There were several verses that I used a lot in my writing, which led me to explore those passages further.
One verse was Galatians 2:20. I decided to dig deeper into that whole chapter and the next so that I could understand what God was trying to teach me through that verse. What a wake-up call I experienced.
Article comments
1 - Carol Buchanan
For by grace you are saved through faith and not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Ephesians 2: 8.
I'm so sorry you had such a struggle before you came to this knowledge, but I find that through my own struggles God leads me to better understanding.
Carol
2 - Nicole Greene
Thank you Carol. I am learning that God uses all things for His good and to grow my faith. It's been a journey but I am thankful.
3 - Philip Hoppe
I appriacte this article. I would only urge you to consider one change to your understanding. You write: "God blesses us when we choose to surrender our lives in faith to Him through obedience." Rather "God blesses us because Jesus chose to surrender his life to Him through obedience." Otherwise, God's blessing still rests upon our action, and not God grace. Faith and obedience just become a new law to follow. Just rest in what Jesus has done.
4 - Nicole Greene
Thank you for your comment Philip. I absolutely agree with you.