Galatians 2:15-21

When God changes us, He starts from the inside out. He does not FORCE us to obey Him, but rather gives us the choice to follow and obey. It is our choice to obey Him in our heart. That is where God starts to change us. HE cleans up our heart. There is nothing that we can do to clean up ourselves or "make ourselves right with God." We are already "right with God" through Christ Jesus and when we accept that truth into our lives. Our work is in realizing that we have to trust God to do the work. I believe that when we rely on God and trust Him to rule over our lives, not only do we allow HIS change in our hearts but we start to live that out. When we live for the purpose of God's love, we recognize the opportunity to obey (and from experience it is easier to obey, even if I'm hesitant to say that), but it always begins with His love for us.

When you genuinely love somebody you will most likely live your life serving them and from that flows an unexplainable obedience to them as well. We give up our own wants and at times our own needs for another's wants and needs. We stop living for ourselves and start living for the other... hopefully that other is God. We learn to live for God by meeting with Him, conversing with Him and reading books and letters that He wrote for us. We learn God's love for us in the story that is written for us and by basking in the glory of the cross. We do not take a works-based approach to God but through His change in our lives our works will flow from His love. Besides, if we have to work our way to God and make ourselves right with Him, then why did Christ suffer and die on the cross for us?
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"You and I are Jews by birth, not 'sinners' like the Gentiles. Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.

But suppose we seek to be made right with God through faith in Christ and then we are found guilty because we have abandoned the law. Would that mean Christ has led us to sin? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Rather, I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down. For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law -- I stopped trying to meet all its requirements -- so that I might live for God. My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die."

~*Galatians 2:15-21 (NLT)*~