What would happen if you tried to use a hammer to place a screw or a drill to place a nail? It wouldn’t work; not because those tools are bad or faulty, but because you would be using those tools to do something they were not designed to do. My prescription glasses are designed to help me see far away, not shade my eyes from the sun, while my sunglasses are incapable of enabling me to see clearly. Again, neither are poorly made, but there is a limit to what each was made to do. So it is with the law of God.

Trying to be saved through the law is using the law in a way that God never intended. It was not meant to give us eternal life or produce God’s promises. God never planned to make us His children through works. Rather, God meant for the law to show us the evil of sin and be “our guardian until Christ” (Gal. 3:24). God has designed the gospel for our salvation, and it works every time. That salvation is experienced through faith in Jesus.

Are you using the spiritual tools God has given you correctly (prayer, law, gospel, the armor of God, etc.)?