The Daily Fountain Daily Devotional of the Church Of Nigeria Anglican Communion

The Daily Fountain Daily Devotional of the Church Of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) 7 May 2019 – The Righteous Shall Live By Faith

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TOPIC: The Righteous Shall Live By Faith

READ: Galatians 3: 1-14 New King James Version (NKJV)

  1. O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?
  2. This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
  3. Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
  4. Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?
  5. Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—
  6. just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
  7. Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.
  8. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.”
  9. So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.
  10. For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.”
  11. But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.”
  12. Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them shall live by them.”
  13. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”),
  14. that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

THE MESSAGE:

God made it explicit right from the Old Testament that the just shall live by his faith (Habakkuk 2:4).

This faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). No matter how they are presented, vain philosophies of men, human ideologies, laws, traditions, customs and dogma, cannot give any person faith. Undefiled faith comes from hearing only one thing and that is, the word of God.

In our read reading today, Paul withstood bluntly those who wanted to replace faith in Christ with works of the law. We must live in the faith and liberty which Christ provided for us than in the bondage of the law. As Paul made known to the Galatians, we must not be bewitched or foolish to think that justification is by the law instead of by faith. Righteousness in Christ is by faith.

By faith the disciples received the Holy Spirit and had miracles; Abraham believed God, Gentiles were justified, received blessings and were redeemed from the curse of the law.

Knowing these, Paul therefore called it foolishness to grow on works of the law. By the grace of God, we are saved through faith in God. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world, therefore, we must walk by faith and not by sight.

PRAYER: Dear God, please help us to walk by faith, not by sight. Help us also not to make a shipwreck of our faith in Jesus Name.