Rules. Bad?

May 21, 2005

If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times: Why would I want to become a Christian and have to live by so many rules?

Well, my friend, because those rules are what gives you freedom and you’ll be blessed to boot.

What?

Consider the verse from James 1:25,

But if you keep looking steadily into God’s perfect law–the law that sets you free–and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for it. (NLT)

It seems counterintuitive doesn’t it? A law that gives freedom?

Here’s an analogy. Imagine life without traffic laws. The roads would be utter chaos. (I got a small taste of this while living in Kenya–those drivers are nuts.)

While it might be nice to ignore red lights when you’re running late, drive on sidewalks when the guy in front of you has stalled in the middle of the road or drive 150 mph so you can cut your commute time in half, could you imagine what it would be like if everyone was driving this way?

No one would venture out. We’d be risking your lives each time we stepped out our front doors. We’d become a world of hermits, isolated in our own homes with little or no face-to-face contact, unable to enjoy creation around us or see the world, stuck with trying to figure out how to meet our basic needs completely on our own. We’d be isolated, depressed, stir crazy, lonely and living in constant fear.

No thanks.

Yet isn’t this exactly what’s happening in the spiritual realm? We want to be able to do our own thing and we so often forget about the consequences. Or, everyone else around us is doing it so we assume it’s OK. We know what we want (or do we?), we want it now and we go to great lengths to get it, no matter how we hurt ourselves or others in the process. We’ve got a total disregard for the One who made us and the way He intended us to live and then we wonder why life is not very fulfilling but full of heartache and pain instead.

No, freedom and blessing sound good to me. I guess those rules aren’t so bad after all.

Category: Deep Thoughts

Comments

One Response to “Rules. Bad?”

  1. naydali
    October 20th, 2008 @ 2:16 pm

    when you get a moment, get the “naked without shame” CDs. They are quite insightful.

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