How foolish can you be? After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? Galatians 3:3
When we talk about self-control, it can be easy to become self-focused on our own efforts. After all, self-control begins with the word “self.” As a result, when we succeed in self-control, it is easy to let pride take over, and when we fail to practice self-control, it is easy to let shame creep in. The truth about self-control is that we cannot do it on our own. It is God who works in our lives and helps us grow so that we become people known for our self-control.
The apostle Paul talks about the importance of letting go of striving and trusting God to help us grow in our relationships with Him in Galatians 3. In this verse, he writes, “How foolish can you be? After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?” (verse 3). This verse confronts a struggle that many of us have: attempting to do good and achieve perfection by working hard and striving. While this is a temptation that many of us fall under, Paul teaches that this type of striving is foolish. Why? Because only God is perfect, and only God can truly help us grow in our relationship with Him and practice self-control. This is not something that we can achieve with our own human effort.
As we think about self-control and Galatians 3:3, we need to understand that this does not mean that we stop trying to live with self-control. Instead, it means that we acknowledge that the true work of self-control is God working in us. This means we work hard, but we do not have to strive and act like self-control is completely dependent on us. After all, God is the one who can truly change us.
When you think about your own life and your own self-control, do you find yourself living like your self-control only depends on you, or do you surrender to God, acknowledging that the Holy Spirit is the one who changes lives and transforms us to become people who practice His self-control? It is time to stop striving and surrender to God. After all, He is the one who transforms lives.
As you reflect on self-control, have a conversation with God. Tell Him if you have been striving without relying on Him to transform you. Tell Him that you know that only He is perfect and only He is capable of truly changing you so that you exhibit this important characteristic of self-control.
Read Galatians 3:8-14 (NLT)
What’s more, the Scriptures looked forward to this time when God would make the Gentiles right in his sight because of their faith. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when he said, “All nations will be blessed through you.” So all who put their faith in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith.
But those who depend on the law to make them right with God are under his curse, for the Scriptures say, “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the commands that are written in God’s Book of the Law.” So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law. For the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.” This way of faith is very different from the way of law, which says, “It is through obeying the law that a person has life.”
But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.
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