Everything right

"If I do everything right, I will be loved."

That is the basic assumption upon which many of us build our lives and our relationships, often from our childhood.

Usually, it doesn't work: either we fail in what we do or we fail for some other reason to get the love we sought.

Many of us operate under this same assumption in our relationship with God.

"If I do everything right, God will love me."

And the flip side: "If I fail to do everything right, God will hate me."

This idea may appear to resonate with Deuteronomy 27:26, as quoted by St. Paul in today's first reading (Galatians 3:7-14):

Cursed be everyone
who does not persevere in doing all the things
written in the book of the law.

The reality is, however, that it is practically impossible to persevere always in doing all the right things and in avoiding all the bad things. We are all sinners.

And so, St. Paul says,

All who depend on works of the law are under a curse.

St. Paul writes about this in the context of his teaching on justification through faith. This is an important but often challenging subject.

Unfortunately, it has been a theological battleground within Christendom for millennia.

It has also been used for millennia as theological cover for immorality: "It doesn't matter what I do, God loves me unconditionally."

God does indeed love us unconditionally, as we should love him, and we are absolutely dependent upon his grace, but what we do does matter.

Our faith must be more than words and feelings: it must live in our lives, as we read in James 2:17-19:

Even so faith,
if it hath not works,
is dead,
being alone.

Yea, a man may say,
Thou hast faith, and I have works:
shew me thy faith without thy works,
and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

Thou believest that there is one God;
thou doest well:
the devils also believe,
and tremble.

God loves us: we cannot earn that love - it is his free gift - yet he also calls us to live that love in our lives of faith, while he remains ever close to us with the power of his grace.

By his grace, we are truly loved.

By his grace, may we be ever faithful.

By his grace, may we love truly.