A hammer can build a house or break a window. A knife can prepare a meal or cut your finger. Fire can warm a home or burn it down. When it comes to judging these tools, the difference is never with the tool itself but how it is used.

The same is true of God’s law. Paul makes it clear in 1 Timothy 1 that the law of God is good, but only when used rightly. And here’s what it was never designed to do: save you. The law cannot rescue you. It was never meant to.

What the law does is expose you. It holds up a perfect standard and reveals exactly how far short you fall. It names sin for what it is: lawlessness, rebellion, godlessness.

Listen to 1 Timothy 1:8–11, “Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.”

The law of God leaves you with nowhere to hide and no way to fix it yourself. That may sound like cruelty, but it’s actually setting the stage for your salvation. Because once the law shows you what you are, the gospel comes in and shows you what Christ has done to offer you forgiveness and salvation. The law diagnoses the disease. Jesus is the cure.

If you are trying to use the law to save yourself, stop it. In other words, are you trying to be saved by being good enough? Beloved, it’ll never work. That’s not using the law lawfully. That’s not what it was designed to do. Let it do its real work, which is to drive you straight to the Savior.

Change begins in you!