"Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?"

"Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?"

Galatians 3:3                         

Why is this such a well-kept secret? Having come into God's kingdom by grace many now try to pay our own way by performance. We declared only temporary bankruptcy; trying to live by good works rather than by grace. After we become Christians, we begin to put away the most obvious sins. We also start attending church, put money in the offering plate, and maybe even start attending Bible study. We see some positive change in our lifestyle, and we begin to feel pretty good about ourselves. We're now ready to emerge from bankruptcy and pay our own way in the Christian life.Our expectation of God's blessing depends on how well we feel we're living the Christian life. We think we can and must "pay our own way" with God. Then the day comes when we fall on our face spiritually. We lapse back into an old sin or fail to do what we should have done. And we assume we've forfeited all blessings from God for some undetermined period of time until we've given and suffered the proper penance. "Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?"

We may retort, "Yea, a man may say, You have faith, and I have works: show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.(Jas.2:18)."  Yet,  James is not talking about working your way to heaven. He's talking about doing good things because we have recognized the wonderful grace of God. Doing things because they are the right and godly things to do, not as merits to win awards.

What about your journey? Have we begun in faith and spirit. Or is the flesh getting the better of us?

Jim