Imagine filling up your car with gas, hitting the road, then pulling into a truck stop, and thinking, “You know what, I think I’ll switch to diesel from here and fill ‘er up.” Bad idea. Catastrophic, actually. You don’t put diesel in your gas-burner. You don’t change fuel mid-journey.

Yet, spiritually, that’s what the Galatians were trying to do, and in Galatians 3, Apostle Paul is stunned. These Galatians began their faith walk in the power of the Spirit. They saw miracles, transformation, new life. Then somehow they drifted into trying to finish what God started through their own rule-following and effort.

Does that sound familiar?

We all face that temptation. We come to Christ helpless, hands open, totally dependent. Then we get comfortable and start filling in the gaps ourselves. We trade trust for try harder. We swap the Spirit’s power for our own willpower. Instead of being carried to Heaven by Jesus, we begin trying to climb to Heaven our own way.

But Paul’s question here in Galatians 3 cuts clean: “Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?” The answer is obvious. And so is the implication: the same faith that started this thing is the same faith that sustains it.

Don’t switch fuels mid-journey. What you couldn’t earn at the beginning, you can’t earn now. It was began in faith and can only be ended in faith. Finish what the Spirit started—by the Spirit.

Change begins in you!