Grace in Galatians (Part 111): From Bondage to Freedom
Today, we continue our series entitled “Living the Grace Life,” where we will learn to embrace and walk in God’s unmerited, unearned, and often undeserved favor throughout 2025.
As part of this series, I am teaching a verse-by-verse exposition of the book of Galatians.
Key scriptures for this year:
(2 Corinthians 9:8 TPT)
"Yes, God is more than ready to overwhelm you with every form of grace, so that you will have more than enough of everything—every moment and in every way. He will make you overflow with abundance in every good thing you do."
(Galatians 5:4 TPT)
"If you want to be made right with God by fulfilling the obligations of the law, you have cut off more than your flesh—you have cut yourselves off from Christ and have fallen away from the revelation of grace!"
(Romans 6:14 ERV)
"Sin will not be your master, because you are not under law. You now live under God's grace."
(1 Corinthians 15:10 CEV)
"But God treated me with undeserved grace! He made me what I am, and his grace wasn't wasted. I worked much harder than any of the other apostles, although it was really God's grace at work and not me."
Scripture we will study today:
(Galatians 3:23 TPT)
“But before faith’s arrival, we were all held prisoners under the jurisdiction of the Law, kept under constant surveillance as we waited for the coming faith to be revealed.”
(Galatians 3:23 ERV)
“Before God gave us this faith, we were all like prisoners of the Law. We were locked up and held there until he let us have the way of faith he wanted to give us.”
Supporting scriptures:
(Romans 8:15 NLT)
“So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, ‘Abba, Father.'”
(Galatians 4:9 NLT)
“So now that you know God (or should I say, now that God knows you), why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world?”
(2 Corinthians 3:17 NLT)
“For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
(Galatians 5:1 NLT)
“So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the Law.”
Setting the Stage:
Yesterday, in Part 110, we discovered that humanity was in TWO prisons. The first one, the prison of sin, came to us as an inheritance from Adam. The second one, the prison of the Law, was given to us by God Himself, and it was administered through Moses. We learned that the Law’s prison was STRATEGIC. It was designed to exhaust human effort and bring people to the end of themselves so they would cry out for a Savior!
But today, I want you to zero in on one specific phrase from Galatians 3:23 that reveals something absolutely critical about what life was like under the Law: “kept under constant surveillance.” Think about that for a moment. CONSTANT surveillance! This wasn’t occasional monitoring or periodic check-ins. This was 24/7 oversight where every action was watched, every failure was recorded, and every violation brought immediate awareness of guilt and condemnation! That’s bondage! Thankfully, Jesus and His grace set us FREE!
So, what does this mean for you today? A few things.
1. Under the Law, You Lived Under a System of Constant Surveillance That Monitored Every Action and Recorded Every Failure.
The phrase “constant surveillance” is powerful! It paints a picture of what life was like under the Law. Life under the Law was like living in a maximum-security prison with cameras in every corner, guards watching your every move, and a record keeper documenting every time you fell short. There was NO REST, NO PEACE, NO FREEDOM! Just relentless pressure to perform perfectly under the watchful eye of a system that could only condemn, never praise!
How this applies to you:
— Under the Law, surveillance wasn’t occasional; it was CONSTANT! There was no break, no vacation, no moment where you weren’t being watched and evaluated against an impossible standard. Every moment of every day, the Law was there, monitoring your performance!
— The surveillance system of the Law created a life of perpetual anxiety! You could never relax. Even when you thought you were doing well, the Law would reveal another area where you were failing!
— Back when I was religious and I thought that I could lose my salvation, I remember reading Phillipians 4:6. When the text told me to be anxious for NOTHING, I remember thinking (in my connex in Kuwait), how can I be anxious for NOTHING when I am afraid of going to hell? It was not until I got the revelation that my salvation was secure in Christ, by grace, that I finally learned to enter into God’s rest. But this required me to be delivered from performance-based religion.
— Think about how exhausting this would be! You wake up, and the surveillance begins. You go through your day trying to keep 613 commandments perfectly, knowing that the moment you slip, it’s RECORDED. You go to bed at night aware of all the ways you failed that day. You go through a long prayer, asking God to forgive you of all the sins you committed that day (the ones of commission and the ones of omission), and you then go to sleep, wake up, and start the process all over again!
— The surveillance system of the Law was designed to create AWARENESS of sin, not freedom from it! Romans 3:20 says, “For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the Law commands. The Law simply shows us how sinful we are!“
— Under constant surveillance, you could never experience peace! Even when you thought you were doing well, you knew deep down that you weren’t measuring up. The awareness of failure was CONSTANT because the surveillance was CONSTANT!
— Religious systems today operate the same way! They create rules and regulations, then they monitor your compliance. They watch what you wear, what you say, where you go, what you watch, and who you associate with. And if you violate their standards, they’re quick to remind you that you’re falling short!
— But here’s your HOPE: Jesus ended the surveillance system! Romans 8:1 says, “There is now NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus!” God is no longer watching you to catch you failing; He’s watching you to see you SUCCEED in the freedom Jesus purchased for you with His own blood!
2. The Surveillance System Created a Spirit of Fear and Slavery, Not Freedom and Sonship.
Here’s what constant surveillance does to you: it makes you feel like a SLAVE, not a SON! When you’re being monitored 24/7, you don’t feel loved; you feel suspected! You don’t feel trusted; you feel watched!
How this applies to you:
— Romans 8:15 says, “You have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children.” The surveillance system of the Law created fear; the freedom of grace creates sonship! Under Law, you’re a slave being watched. Under grace, you’re a son being loved!
— When you’re under surveillance, your relationship with God becomes transactional! You start thinking, “If I do this, maybe God will bless me. If I avoid that, maybe God won’t punish me.” You’re constantly trying to manage God’s response to you based on your performance!
— Earlier in this series, I told you that (this constant surveillance) made people focus on EXTERNAL compliance rather than INTERNAL change! You weren’t concerned about having a pure heart; you were concerned about being CAUGHT with an impure heart! The Law created performers, not lovers of God!
— Think about how children behave when they know they’re being watched versus when they feel loved and trusted. When they’re being surveilled, they’re cautious, calculated, and nervous. When they’re loved and trusted, they’re free, creative, and confident!
— I will ‘pull the string’ on the point about creativity. When you live under the performance space system of the Law, you’re so focused on the rules and compliance that, in most cases, you’re not really open to God or receptive to the type of creativity that heaven can deposit in your heart. But when you get free from the pressure to perform, you are completely open to whatever the Holy Spirit is saying. At this point, you can receive downloads from heaven that will change your life forever. These are ideas intended to put your life in alignment with God’s assignment for you, and these are ideas you would have never come up with when you were focused on the limitations of your performance.
— Under constant surveillance, you develop a performance-based identity! Instead of knowing you’re righteous because of Jesus, you start believing you’re only as good as your last performance. If you had a good day, you feel close to God. If you had a bad day, you feel distant. Your worth becomes tied to your performance under the watching eye of the Law!
— Many Christians today still live under a surveillance mentality! They think God is watching them with a clipboard, marking down every mistake, calculating whether they’ve done enough to earn His favor. They live in fear, not freedom!
— Here’s the HOPE for you today: When you placed your faith in Jesus, you moved from slavery to sonship! God isn’t monitoring you to catch you failing; He’s leading you as a loving Father who wants you to walk in the freedom and confidence of someone who is fully accepted, completely loved, and permanently His child! Once this revelation is sealed in your heart, you will be free to think the way God thinks, to believe what God believes about you, and to pursue God-sized dreams for your life!
3. The Surveillance System Was Temporary.
Now here’s the key: the surveillance wasn’t meant to be permanent! Paul says we were kept under constant surveillance “as we WAITED for the coming faith to be revealed.” The surveillance had an EXPIRATION DATE! It was only in effect UNTIL Jesus came!
How this applies to you:
— The surveillance system was never God’s permanent plan for relating to His people! It was a TEMPORARY measure to prepare humanity for the coming of Christ. Once Jesus arrived, He transitioned us to a system of God’s grace and our faith. This is the same system Abraham operated in 430 years before the Law. It is also the same system Adam operated in while he was in the Garden of Eden, before the fall.
— Think about this: the Law said, “Do this and don’t do that, or else!” But grace says, “It’s already done! Jesus did it all!” Under the Law, you’re being monitored for compliance. Under grace, you’re being empowered for victory! The paradigm completely shifted when faith arrived!
— Galatians 3:24-25 says, “The Law was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the Law as our guardian.” Once Jesus showed up, the surveillance system was NO LONGER NEEDED!
— God isn’t monitoring you to see if you’re keeping rules; He’s empowering you through His Spirit to live in freedom!
— This is why Paul was so frustrated with the Galatians! They were trying to go BACK to living under surveillance after faith had arrived! Galatians 4:9 asks, “Why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more?” Once you’ve experienced freedom, why would you return to a surveillance system?
— Many Christians live as if the surveillance system is still active! They think God is still watching them with the same condemning eye that the Law had. But that system was TERMINATED at the cross!
— Here’s your HOPE today: The surveillance ended when Jesus died and rose again! You’re not waiting for freedom; you’re walking in freedom! The cameras are off, the record book is closed, and you’re living under the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit who leads you, not surveils you! This is #TheGraceLife!
4. Living Under the Spirit’s LEADING Changes Everything!
You’ve moved from SURVEILLANCE to LEADING! Under the Law, you were monitored and condemned. Under grace, you’re led and empowered! The Holy Spirit doesn’t watch you to catch you failing; He guides you to help you succeed! Romans 8:14 says, “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” You’re not under surveillance; you’re under leadership! And there’s a MASSIVE difference!
How this applies to you:
— The Holy Spirit operates completely differently from the Law! The Law surveilled from the OUTSIDE and condemned when you failed. The Spirit leads from the INSIDE and empowers you to succeed!
— Under the Spirit’s leading, you have FREEDOM! 2 Corinthians 3:17 says, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom!” The Spirit doesn’t create a new surveillance system with Christian rules; He creates an environment of freedom where you’re empowered to live righteously from the inside out!
— The Spirit leads you into truth, not condemnation! John 16:13 says, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.” When you mess up, the Spirit doesn’t condemn you; He guides you back to truth!
— Think about the difference: Under the Law, you lived in fear of being caught. Under grace, you live in confidence that you’re being LED! The Holy Spirit empowers you to change. He is not focused on punishing you. He reminds you of who you are in Him!
— This doesn’t mean you can live any way you want! It means you’re FREE to live the way God intended. How did God intend for us to live? For that, we go back to the Garden of Eden before the fall. Adam walked with God in the cool of the day. He was led by the Holy Spirit 24/7/365. He never went to school. He did not live by education; he lived by revelation. He did not rely on intellect; he relied on his spirit-led instinct. The Holy Spirit was his direct connection to the Father, and as a result, He received insight, wisdom, revelation, knowledge, and understanding from heaven. His assignment was to extend heaven to the earth. He failed. But Jesus succeeded. Jesus lived the same way I just described, but Jesus never sinned. Jesus was the incarnation of God in the flesh, and we are the continuation of His incarnation. As Jesus is, so are we, in this world!
— Religious people will try to put you back under a system of rules! This is why the only people Jesus had a problem with, while He was on the earth, were the religious people. Think about it. Jesus’ enemies were NOT sinners. They are people who were focused on THE LAW! And those same people are out here today, trying to get you to live by the Law, when the Bible teaches you to be led by the Spirit! Which one will you choose?
That's enough for today.
Declaration of Faith:
Father, I thank You that the surveillance system of the Law has been shut down in my life!
I’m no longer being monitored for failure; I’m being empowered for success!
I refuse to live under the fear and anxiety of constant surveillance!
I’m not a slave being watched; I’m a son being loved and led!
The Holy Spirit is within me, guiding me, empowering me, and transforming me from the inside out!
I walk in the confidence of someone who is fully accepted, completely loved, and permanently free!
I am led by Your Spirit every day, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, THERE IS FREEDOM!
I’m Living the Grace Life, and GREATER IS COMING FOR ME!
I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen!
This is Today’s Word. Apply it and prosper!
Comments