For Christians living under grace, faith in Jesus Christ and in His finished works is a necessity. Under Old-Testament law, obedience was measured by performance. By comparison, in the New Testament, God now considers our belief as obedience; correspondingly, He sees unbelief as disobedience. If we are still stuck in religious tradition, we must renew our minds to the current new-covenant definition of what it means to obey if we want to experience blessings. With this in mind, we must abandon our self-efforts that religion demands from us and simply trust in Jesus. When we believe we are righteous because of Him, our behavior will eventually reflect that.
