Hello GOD TV viewers, welcome, and my name is Harvey Katz. So glad to be with you today and I’d like to read to you from Galatians 3 and it’s about the receiving of the Spirit and it says this, starting in verse 1: “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?”
And then it goes onto verse five: “Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? – just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you, all the nations shall be blessed.’ So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.”
So many believers are striving to prove and please God by their self-effort, but it’s faith that turns to the Lord, it’s faith in Jesus Christ. You no longer have to earn God’s approval. What we want to do is walk in faith with Him. It’s not striving under the law and keeping rules and regulations. It’s walking in a love relationship with God through Jesus Christ and, it’s so important that Paul had to stress that it’s by faith that we receive the Spirit and it’s by faith that we walk in the Spirit of Christ. And that’s where our freedom is. There is liberty in walking in faith in Jesus Christ.
Let’s pray. Father God, we thank You that we no longer have to strive under the law to earn Your approval. We thank you oh God that we can have a living relationship with You, through Jesus Christ and that we receive the Spirit and it’s through the Spirit that we are able to do all things, that testify of Jesus, and the Spirit strengthens us within. And now, Lord, we just want to thank You and turn from our own self-effort and welcome the Spirit by faith in Jesus Christ, Amen.