It All Comes from Jesus

 

It All Comes from Jesus

 

Galatians 1:1-2 says, “Paul, an apostle – not from men nor through men, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead – and all the brothers who are with me, to the churches of Galatia.”

 

This is how Paul begins the book of Galatians. Paul reveals that he is not an apostle because people made him that, not even what he has made himself, but he is an apostle because that is what Jesus has made him. What we do in life & what we do in God’s kingdom is not determined by us, but by Jesus. Jesus died to pay for our sins & rose to give us victory over our sins. That makes Jesus Lord & as Lord it is He, not us or others, who determines who we are & how we are to serve God.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about Jesus being our Lord & about Him, not us, determining how we live. 

 

Galatians 1:3 says, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

 

Paul prays that the Galatian believers would experience God’s grace & peace. Grace, God’s unmerited favor is given to us through Jesus & leads to us experiencing God’s peace. We cannot experience God’s peace until we come to receive His grace through Jesus.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about experiencing God’s grace through Jesus &, through His grace, experiencing God’s peace.

 

Galatians 1:4 says, “Who gave Himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.”

 

Jesus gave His life for our sins to provide forgiveness, but also to provide us with deliverance from the power of sin to enslave us & control us. Every age since the fall has been evil because of the effects of sin. So, the age that Paul lived in was evil & the age that we are living in is evil. Jesus provides forgiveness & deliverance.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about receiving forgiveness of sin & deliverance from sin.

 

Galatians 1:5 says, “To whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”

 

Jesus is worthy of glory forever because of who He is & what He has done. Paul sees everything in His life as coming from God’s grace; his calling as an apostle, the peace he has with God, the forgiveness of sin he has, & the deliverance from the power of sin that he has. We live in a time when people feel entitled to everything good that they want in life. The reality is that anything good that we have or experience comes, not from our deserving it or our earning it, but from the grace of God which we can experience in knowing Jesus as our Savior & Lord.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about knowing that every good thing we have comes from God’s grace in Jesus.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls,

Joe