I
think every Christian struggles with being under the law or
under grace, and in so doing they tend to go too far one way or the
other while missing grace entirely. If you lean too far the one way, you become legalistic and think
you can earn favour from God by the way you live. If you lean too far the
other way, you turn grace into a license to sin and think you can live
any way you want to. The truth of the matter is that it has to be a
balance of both. You see, the Christian needs to remember that there is
nothing he/she can do to earn favour with God; he/she simply needs to
trust in the person and work of Christ Jesus on the cross at Calvary.
But at the same time he/she needs to remember that the Bible commands a
certain way of living from the Christian that is different from the rest
of the world. We should strive to live this way not because it will
merit us favour with God, because it will not, but because we love Jesus
and it is our righteous calling. If we examine the New Testament
carefully, we will find it laced with more commandments to the Christian
than we find in the Old Testament. The only way we can live these
commandments out is through the Holy Spirit: "Walk by the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16). Do we believe it?
