Inconvenienced by the Rules

Over the last decade, it has become common to express that one is not “religious, but has a personal relationship with Jesus”, and that “it’s not about the rules, it’s about the relationship”.  These things are true, I’m not at all arguing that.  I think that when it’s about the religion to us, when it’s about the rules, that’s when we get off track.  

Legalism does one of two things, usually:  it (1) makes us feel like it’s impossible to please God and live by all of the rules and laws, or (2) makes us feel like righteousness is something we earn, and we get self-righteous and judgmental and treat Christianity like an elite club.  Legalism poisons our perception of who God is, and unfortunately, our legalism can poison the perception of who God is for non-believers.

Jesus explains in Matthew 5:20-28 that it’s not just about our actions, but our heart and our thoughts, too!  Then in Matthew chapter 23 Jesus goes in on the church leaders, how their legalist mindset leads them to “crush people with unbearable religious demands” and never encourage, but also leads them to esteem themselves very highly because of their title-as if they don’t have their own sin to deal with!  Jesus is very clear about how legalism negatively effects our faith.  Our heart, thoughts and attitude are every bit as important as our actions!

BUT, I feel that our generation is manipulating this some.  I feel like we’ve made it so much about relationship and our intentions, that we’re acting like our actions don’t matter, as long as we love Jesus.  But legalism and OBEDIENCE are two very different things.  As a matter of fact, our love for Jesus is directly related to our obedience.  In John 14:31 Jesus used Himself as the example, in saying that because He loves His father, He does everything He commands of Him.  Many, many times, Jesus used the word “love” and “obey” together, because they go hand-in-hand.

If you love God, and are spending time with Him, the rules aren’t your focus, pleasing God is our focus.  When I got married, I took vows.  There are “rules” involved in that, but everyday I’m not reminding myself of those rules, because loving Alex is all the reason I need to stick to those vows.  I can’t even imagine what marriage would be like if I ignored all the vows/promises I made and claimed everything was okay because I love him.  That’s how we should view our relationship with God.  Our obedience is not to some inconvenient rules imposed on us, its to a God that loves us and sacrificed for us and knows better than we do.

This doesn’t mean that if you love God you’re not going to mess up.  It means that it’s your love for God is what makes you try hard not to.  There’s a big difference between making mistakes, and making the conscious decisions not to obey.  God has offered us this grace that we don’t deserve, and could never earn; but it comes with expectation... and that expectation is that we repent, and strive to be better.  When Jesus encountered the woman caught in adultery He told her that He wasn’t going to condemn her, but then said “Go and sin no more”.  He didn’t tell her “It’s okay, I understand, you were caught up”.  He lovingly told her, “Go and sin no more”.

A lot of us don’t like the idea of that.  We’re so caught up in God’s amazing grace and knowing that He loves us as we are, that we think that means it’s okay to STAY as we are.  He implores us to change.  He knows that we will slip up sometimes, but it’s in the striving to be better that we accomplish what He asks.  Sometimes it gets easy for us to think “God knows my heart” and feel that excuses us; and it’s true, God DOES know our hearts.  That means He knows when we’re trying and when we’re making excuses.  Hebrews 10:26 says “... if we DELIBERATELY keep sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left.” ... telling us that if we make the decision not to obey, we’re annulling God’s grace.  We can’t manipulate God’s grace, and pretend to be sorry when we’re planning to keep making the same mistakes.  We can only receive it when our heart is genuinely repentant.  Grace never runs out for those who love God and are striving to please Him.

It’s important that we know that a relationship with God isn’t about rules, and certainly not hinging on whether or not we earn our righteousness badge.  Jesus did that for us. Our love for Him should cause us to WANT to be obedient.