Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today- what motivates me to do the do I do? Do you do law or do you do the dance?
Matthew 15:2
[2] “Why do your disciples ignore the traditions of our elders? For example, they don’t ceremonially wash their hands before they eat bread.”
Observation
Rules demand observance and carry punishment that usually involves exclusion. Obedience and judgement is at the heart of following the rules. Why don’t you do? Is the key question. You don’t have a relationship with rules, they are not intimate, they are only ever demanding. Demanding of you and then arming of you as you demand obedience from others. And we are obsessed with rules. They give us safety, they give us certainty, they give us power. And yet Jesus fulfilled the rule book and then closed it forever, never to be opened again.
Rules never engage our hearts and they never produce the heart of their intent, and God is all about the heart. He did not give us a rule book to follow He invites us into himself, into the flow of His life, into the intimacy of his self, and He cancels all the power of the rules to exclude anyone. He took away the punishment by issuing full, final, forever, for all, forgiveness, and he closed the law book that made any accusation deserved of judgement and punishment null and void, there is no rules upon which to base any accusation and condemnation.
It is entering into the divine dance of our three in one God that we enter the true flow of life in its fullness. We find the truest form of ourselves, in the dance of discovering them, we find all the love, security, identity, power we need in the dance. When we live from His beauty we don’t need to be controlled and manipulated by rules, beauty’s power calls forth freely more of me than any written and enforced law code could ever extract. Laws are clear, certain whereas this divine dance is an invitation into mystery. But is this not the key of the Christian walk – to walk with God in mystery, through intimate discovery, for the purpose of transformation that I might bear His image and reveal him to the world. Why do we make it about following rules that no longer exist?!?! Are we afraid of the intimacy of His beauty, are we afraid of the intimacy of being known? Are we too intellectually minded to engage in the pursuit of mystery?
Application
I will not live in the closed book of the law, and I will not engage with others through its lens of rules and punishment and demands. I will live in the mystery of the dance. I will allow myself the freedom to live outside of laws death and the freedom to be present to the dance. I am not a follower of Jesus, I am a partaker of his life, I live and move and find my being in the divine dance.
Response
Thank you that you fulfilled the laws, closed the courts, forgave all and ended judgement and condemnation. This would have been enough, but then you gave yourself freely for me to find myself freely. You did not leave me to myself, for law would be better than me left to my own devices, but you gave me yourself, so that in you I would find me and the life you always intended. Thank you that beauty and love are the only motivations for my behaviour. You will not pick up the threatening stick even when I deserve it. Thank you, this life in your dance is amazing.
Meditation
Meditate – law or love?
Consider:
How often do you live under law and the rod?
Do you know how to dance?
JOURNEY DEEPER
