Galatians 3:1-2

1 O YOU poor and silly and thoughtless and unreflecting and senseless Galatians! Who has fascinated or bewitched or cast a spell over you, unto whom--right before your very eyes--Jesus Christ (the Messiah) was openly and graphically set forth and portrayed as crucified?

   

2 Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the [Holy] Spirit as the result of obeying the Law and doing its works, or was it by hearing [the message of the Gospel] and believing [it]? [Was it from observing a law of rituals or from a message of faith?]

We can ask ourselves the exact same question that Paul asked the Galatians: which one of us received the Holy Spirit by obeying Saturday as our Sabbath, or by not making an idol, by having no other god’s, by not coveting or murdering, by being circumcised, by honoring our parents, or by not lying about others? Be honest here, most of us were not keeping any of these things that our Father commanded the children of Israel to do when we were born again and filled with the Holy Spirit. 

Let’s bring the focus of this question into the religious rules of today and ask ourselves the same question again. Which one of us was saved and filled with the Holy Spirit by not drinking, by wearing certain clothes, by wearing a certain hairstyle, by going to a certain building on a certain day, by tithing, by offering, or by not saying certain words, or thinking certain thoughts? None of us were saved by doing these works. The Truth to grab hold of here, and it can only be grasped through the strength of the Holy Spirit, is that we weren’t saved by religious laws and we aren’t kept by them either. Our Father chose us before the world ever was and He birthed us right in the middle of most of us doing crazy and stupid things, just as He did with Paul, Galatians 1:15 & Acts 9:2-8.

No one is able to come to Me unless the Father Who sent Me attracts and draws him and gives him the desire to come to Me, and [then] I will raise him up [from the dead] at the last day. Acts 6:22

For the promise to Abraham or his posterity, that he should inherit the world, did not come through [observing the commands of] the Law but through the righteousness of faith. Romans 4:13

Likewise, my brethren, you have undergone death as to the Law through the [crucified] body of Christ, so that now you may belong to Another, to Him Who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. Romans 7:4

We were saved because our Father did it for us. We are righteous because Jesus now Authors and Finishes our Faith, Hebrews 12:2. And we are now dead to the Law and all religious laws except Love. Yet even Love is not ours to worry about, Jesus lives to cause us to Love with the full and complete power of His love, John 17:26. The Holy Spirit will never let us be fooled or bewitched by false teachers who claim that we must first do anything on our own or who place a bunch of so called religious laws before us to keep.