Galatians 2 Stop trying to be good accept God's Grace

It is only day two and I am learning so much!

^{The accusation is frivolous. If I was "trying to be good," I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan.}

^19-21What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

   Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

Galatians 2:18-21 the message

So many times I find myself going through check lists and when i am able to check off things on it I feel good. I feel like God ought to love me more because I did all the things on my list that are good. He gently reminds me, " I have loved you with an everlasting love..." Jeremiah 31:3 His grace is sufficient I need to stop trying to be good-stop trying to keep the rules I made up and just be a woman according to God's heart. 

So, I must remember to crucify myself with Christ daily-although sometimes I need to hourly! Because Christ's life is the perfect example of what I should do. I love the way the message states this-IT IS NO LONGER IMPORTANT FOR ME TO APPEAR RIGHTEOUS OR TO TRY TO IMPRESS GOD. 

what a load of my shoulders-God doesn't want to be impressed by me-he wants to be loved in obedience by me-what a beautiful thing his death and resurrection has set us free to have a relationship with him!

BY GRACE WE HAVE BEEN SAVED THROUGH FAITH!

Ephesians 2:5
that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)

Another verse  that caught my attention was 

"The only additional thing they asked was that we remember the poor, and I was already eager to do that." Galatians 2:10

as I was doing research  

I found this writing by Charles Spurgeon http://www.biblebb.com/files/spurgeon/0099.htm

I like this excerpt

 "Grace is a plant which draws no nourishment from the wilderness in which it grows; it finds nothing to feed upon in the heart of man; all it lives upon it receives supernaturally. It sends all its roots upwards, none downwards; it draws no support from poverty, and none from riches. Gold cannot sustain grace; on the other hand, rags cannot make it flourish. Grace is a plant which derives the whole of its support from God the Holy Spirit, and is therefore entirely independent of the circumstances of man. But yet, mark you, it is an undeniable fact, that God hath been pleased for the most part to plant his grace in the soil of poverty. He has not chosen many great, nor many mighty men of this world, but he hath "chosen the poor of this world—rich in faith—to be heirs of the kingdom of God." We should wonder why, were we not quite sure that God is wise in his choice. We cannot dispute a fact which Scripture teaches, and which our own observation supports, that the Lord's people are, to a very large extent, the poor of this world. Very few of them wear crowns; very few ride in carriages; only a proportion of them have a competence; a very large multitude of his family are destitute, afflicted, tormented, and are kept leaning, day by day, upon the daily provisions of God, and trusting him from meal to meal, believing that he will supply their wants out of the riches of his fullness"

with the holidays coming up let's make an effort to remember those in need and rally together to help them.

be it in our bible studies, social groups, or book clubs-maybe a food drive or donations?

We can do all things through Christ! phil 4:13