How many times do we put expectations and restrictions on ourselves or others about what it means to be accepted by God and God’s people? We have to attend church this frequently. We can’t wear those kinds of clothes. We can’t get that kind of mark on our bodies. We can’t hang out with those kinds of people. We have to volunteer so many times a year. We have to read our Bible and pray just this way every day. We have to believe in our holiness. We need evidence of it to make it so.

It’s exhausting—and completely beside the point!

Paul knew this well. He was one for following the letter of the law completely, and he was chief Pharisee among all Pharisees before that fateful day on the road to Damascus when he heard the voice of Christ speaking directly to him. Once converted to faith in Jesus, he found that same legalism greeting him among the new Christians. His letter to the Romans was a response to such soul-stripping rules and ways of exercising one’s belief.

Without faith, Paul wants us to know, it all means nothing. Faith is what ushers us into the family of Abraham’s long line of descendants, born not just of flesh but of that same faith that saved him that very first day he heard God’s promise for the future. We become part of that royal order of nations and kings and descendants and generations that God foretold from the beginning, and it’s our faith—not the letter of the law—that gets us there. That is truly the best news of all!