GraceUnlimited

What is stopping you and I from progressing- It is a sinful, self-exalting heart. The OT prophets showed how shocking, idiotic, irrational and sad it is to pursue what you want with disregard for God. The NT shows that to love God and love your neighbour sum up the law. But instead we love ourselves and want what we want above what God wants or our neighbour needs. When the sinful self-exalting heart doesn't get what it wants it becomes depressed or angry or anxious and responds in destructive ways. This way of life is painful and drives you away from true progress. The way out is to identify the source of your strong emotional struggles in the sinful self-exalting heart and come to honour God in true submission, humility and resulting joy.

As we see people stumble and fall and even stop running in the race of the Christian life, what makes us confident that they can get back up and start to run on the right path and make it to the end- Paul shows us how our confidence is not in ourselves, but in the Lord. The He is the one who will get his people home. We can be confident that he will judge those who are leading others astray and that as we run for Christ, our lives will be offensive to the world around us. But let us make sure its the cross that is offensive, because that leads people to meet the Savior-

We can easily think that what we do or don't do, makes God happy with us. Paul shows us today that what you believe, impacts what you do. What matters to God is whether you are trusting in Jesus alone for your right standing before him, and if you do, it will lead to a faith that loves other people in practical ways. There has always been a tension between faith and works, but Paul helps us see that faith alone is never alone because true faith is a loving faith.