Meet Colson Files

Can I be honest? I have a deep dislike for treadmills. If I had my way, there would never be another one made. Ever. Every time I step onto one and start running, I feel like I just get nowhere. I spend time running and exhausting myself, but in the end, I am in the same spot I started. All that work and I feel like I did not get anywhere!

That is how I used to feel in my walk with the Lord. I tried to do the right thing, but I focused on my actions instead of my relationship with Him. At the end of the day, I felt like I was on an exhausting spiritual treadmill. 

In this passage, Paul is trying to get the Jews off their spiritual treadmills. He is concluding his argument that not one human being is righteous except through Christ. The law he is referring to in verse 19 requires complete and perfect obedience. If God's chosen people, the Jews, cannot keep the law, then certainly no Gentile can, so every mouth is stopped! To be clear, Paul broadens his statement by saying the whole world is accountable to God.

"For by works of the Law no human being will be justified in his sight . . . ." (Verse 20) To reaffirm his point in verse 19, Paul clearly articulates for us that the Law is in no way, shape, or form able to save us from our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, if you were a Jew back in that time, the conclusion to Paul's argument that everyone is unrighteous would be very defeating. Even today, many Christians are running on a spiritual treadmill, trying to gain access to heaven through their works and obedience to the Old Testament law. But thankfully, the concept of grace through faith in Jesus Christ is the freedom from that treadmill that people need to hear. It allows us to rest in our faith in Him instead of working to obtain a righteousness we will never reach.