Paul was right; Peter knew better. He knew no one was justified by working the law; his faith was firmly fixed on Jesus. BUT legalism is sneaky. It can happen to the best of us, just like it did to Peter. Under pressure (it doesn’t always take much), we can separate ourselves from those who don’t fit into our normal crowd out of fear of what the crowd might think.
Jesus always had that problem; he was always being judged because he was hanging out with the wrong people, those who didn’t fit the profile. What made Jesus pretty cool was that he turned the world upside down by simply not avoiding people, especially those who didn’t fit the profile.
I hope we will always be ready to expose our sneaky legalism (our tendency to measure our righteousness by comparing ourselves to others) and embrace a willingness to turn the world upside down, just like Jesus.
Sooo good! Thank you for this reminder I needed today!