Rules is Rules - March 28, 2008

Good Friday morning! The sun is out and I am slowing getting underway on this fine morning. Does having a vacation day on Friday in place of working have anything to do with the fineness of the day? Well, yeah! Not having school work makes the day even better. My goal is not to goof off all day, but to start cleaning up the house. Yes, it is now spring and that means time for spring cleaning to begin. While the late March weather is still too cool for much outside work, the inside work can start this morning.

Legalism, so hard to avoid, so easy to turn on others. Traffic laws can be quite difficult to remember on the driver's license test, but so easy to remember when another driver disobeys one. Instructions can be difficult to understand or follow when we face them for the first time, but if we write them down it seems strange that someone cannot understand simple rules. The Pharisees had just this kind of problem. As a group, they were very good at following their own rules and regulations. To the common folk however, those same rules were a tremendous burden. This might remind you of a certain organization that is supposed to be serving us! (Hint: this organization employs more workers than anyone else in America.) Yes, that old legalism can block the way to a relationship with Christ. Jesus came down on the Pharisees hard for their blinding love of rules. He calls us to tell people the Good News of life and freedom in Christ. Setting up Christianity as a set of do's and don'ts can be very tempting, and that is one of the complaints of critics in the world. We must remember the Good News first when spreading the light of Jesus in this world. We obey the rules after we come to love and know Jesus. In Christ, we serve others because we want to, not because we have to. God does not love us less when we disobey, though He is certainly disappointed, but we obey to please our heavenly Father. To the world our relationship looks like one of strict obedience to earn a way into Heaven. Paul reminds us that the world will not understand that salvation comes from Christ first, before anything we can do, and that nothing we can do will earn us a pass to Heaven. Grace is not something that we can earn, but a free gift from Christ to those who will believe in Him.

Have a wonderful weekend in Christ Jesus!

Bucky