Nothing To Commit

"Grace to you and peace from God our Father
and our Lord Jesus Christ,
who gave Himself for our sins,
that He might deliver us from this present evil age...
I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him...
The gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.

I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries...
being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions...
But when it pleased God... who called me through His grace,
to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles...
they glorified God in me."

~excerpts from Galatians 1

"To attempt to change the gospel has the effect of making it the very opposite of what it really is."

"The gospel shuts out all works."

"The other day a man said to me, 'I want to become a Christian.
I am going to try to be a little better, and if I improve, I am going to become a Christian.'
"I said to him, 'If you improve, you will never become a Christian.  
The only class that God is saving is the ungodly.
The Lord Jesus said He didn't come to call the righteous; He came to call sinners.
There is none righteous, no, not one.
The righteousness of man is as filthy rags in God's sight.
Law condemns us, and it must make us speechless before grace can save us.'"

"The gospel of grace puts us in the dust and makes us beggars before God."

"We have nothing to commit to Him...
You have nothing to commit to Him, my friend.
He wants to commit something to you.
He is the One who died, and He is on the giving end."

~excerpts from Thru The Bible With J. Vernon McGee, on Galatians 1

What stood out to me in pondering Galatians 1 this morning was Himself.  
He is the gospel.  
He is the good news.  
He is the message.  
He is the deliverance.
And He is the One we turn from when we turn from the gospel.

The good news is the work of Christ accomplished for us.
Complete in Him.
Not our advancement beyond our contemporaries in zealousness,
but the revealing of His Son in us through His grace by His will
that we might preach HIM,
that God would be glorified in us.
God is not glorified in our righteousness.
He is glorified in the work of Christ --
the righteousness of Christ.
The deliverance of Christ.