As I continue to read Galatians, I find myself filled with heartbreak, while at the same time filled with joy as the burden of being “good enough” is slowly lifted.

Heartbreak, because Paul writes that when I live as if “justification were through the law…,” then I am saying “…Christ died for no purpose” (Gal. 2.21). Can you imagine anything more distressing—even that word doesn’t come close to expressing it—than saying Christ died for nothing. But when we live as if we have to be good enough and live up to the laws we have pulled from the Bible, then that is in effect what we are saying by the way we live our lives.

At the same time, I’m also filled with joy and a relief, which is just beginning to take hold and seep through my understanding, that tells me the “truth of the gospel.” This truth is the fact that through Christ’s death I am made enough (Rom. 5:1-11; I Cor. 6:9-11). I am washed clean. I don’t have to stress and constantly carry around the burden of being good enough to go to heaven and to be in relationship with him.

Despite this truth, how many of us are so afraid of the freedom it comes with that, when we get a taste, we scurry back to the “safety” of the law and tell Christ he died for no purpose?