Today’s passage is Galatians 3:10-18. Paul quotes liberally from the Old Testament to show that through faith in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross we receive the promise of the Spirit and the blessing given to Abraham. He argues that the covenant made to Abraham before the advent of the law 430 years later takes precedence over the law. The inheritance depends on a promise not the law.

Why is God’s promise more important than the law? Why is the law a curse?

Because I don’t have a good mind for philosophy, theology and argument, Paul is often hard for me to understand.

I turn with relief to Jesus’ words, which are mostly plain and simple even though they’re hard to obey.

The curse of the law is this: it’s impossible to obey.

That’s why we need God’s promise, which came before the law.

During his earthly life, Jesus obeyed the law, the only one able to do it.

But by dying on the cross, the only perfectly obedient person ironically became a curse. By dying to the law, however, he freed all of us cursed by the law if we have faith in God’s promise. Our faith makes us righteous.

My experience of breaking the law everyday shows me the truth of the law’s curse.

I don’t just mean any one of the ten commandments either, although they are pretty good benchmarks.

I make idols of things.
I commit adultery with every lustful glance at a woman. I steal.

Today I stole 100 won that someone left lying on a desk.

I say or repeat slanderous things about people around me.
I’m always coveting something that belongs to someone else, especially their expensive pens or their cool shoes.

When I drive our car, I never obey all the traffic rules.

If I think too much about my law breaking, I get depressed at how hopeless it all seems.

And I break my promises as readily and thoughtlessly as I do the laws.

I broke my promise to love my first wife.

I broke my promise to talk to a couple of rule-breaking boys today.

I broke my promise to pray for others at noon.

I can’t make it through a day without breaking my promise to keep my temper or to smile more than I frown.

And yet I keep making promises because I really do want to keep them and I think that I will.

But when I look back on the day, I see the wreckage of my broken promises littered among my sins.

God doesn’t need any laws because he’s love, and he keeps his promise.

He promises that through faith in his loving sacrifice for my cursed law-breaking I will be made righteous.

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Although I can’t trust anyone else’s promise, I can trust God’s. The more I see my sins and the sins of others, the more God shines in that darkness because he kept his promise.

He died for me, gave me his Spirit and the faith to trust him. That’s love.

Application: to pray to God to keep more promises than I break.

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Lord, inspire me with your Spirit to keep my promises of love. Let me not make thoughtless promises but discern the ones you want me to make.