Contextual Bible: Galatians

Have you seen that no matter how much you try to live by moral standards and principles, you always fail? Your conscience is never at rest, burdened down with guilt. This is because when Adam sinned, he was cut off from God's powerful spirit, like a branch cut off from a tree. We are all born in this condition, therefore it is impossible for us, in our own human efforts, to be able to live up to God's perfect standards. We not only need God's offer of free and unconditional forgiveness, but we need to be grafted back into God, so that his spirit flows through us again, giving us the power to be able to do his will and live up to his requirements. Unaware of this, we try to live up to God's standards in our own strength, trapped in the treadmill of our own human efforts, enslaved to our consciences, enslaved to sin. Paul's letter to the Galatians shows us how we can be liberated from this treadmill, freed from the control of sin.