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Observation

Is there a place for the law? Are some things right and some things wrong? If abundant life is the measure, then some things bring life and some things rob life. So knowing the difference is critical. But what we do with our knowing becomes more critical than the knowing. You can weaponise truths of life so that they bring death to the very foundation of life. If we were to say that love and salvation, by that I mean an intimate right relationship with God, are the foundations of abundant life, then if we enforce a law of life that destroys, or undermines, the foundations of life, then we have weaponised the way of life and fired it to bring death to life itself. You can be an expert on the laws of life and rather than be a bringer of life, you become an executioner of the very life look to expertly uphold.

This is what religion does. It presents itself as an expert, it parades itself around as expert in its expert’s clothing, enforcing their expert status through symbols of importance, while all the time killing the life it proposes to be an expert in. Most people want to live loved, with hope, in security, with a future beyond the body, and an identity that they can live into, They want meaning and purpose, in other words, most people want the abundant life that God offers. So when the experts come and point their law fingers who are they pointing them at? I think there are several types of people who break the laws of life. The first person is broken and struggles with the way of life and struggles to walk in its fullness. The second chooses this way of walking in response to their pain as a way of healing towards wholeness. The third chooses the path because they have selfish and evil intentions and want to sway others into their self-satisfaction. The next person does not see it as a law of life at all, they do not recognise and agree that this is a law of life. The expert of the law crucifies all with equal vigour, their hammer falls “guilty,” and they yell their punishment “exclusion.” There is no consideration of the why behind the what, all that matters is the law and execution of punishment. And in so doing they use love and salvation as weapons, for exclusion from the table is the usual threat and execution.

They take the foundations of abundant life and sacrifice them on the altar of minor rightness. And often this rightness is self-opinioned rightness. And the history of the experts of law shows clearly that they change their own laws. That time, or maybe freshen of revelation, changes their own picture of their laws, yet they condemn with the passion of perceived rightness, As they are fallen into their own trap, they have become self-proclaimed experts in the law, for they have the robes and fill the seats. You can dress and sit, but not be an expert.

Application

I must be so very careful that I don’t “follow the example of these pretentious experts of the law!” For I have the robes and get to sit in the expert’s seats. How tempting it is to foolishly become an expert. May I never crucify the foundations of God’s abundant life for the obscure incidentals, no matter how clear I believe them to be to me and how passionate I may be about them. The fewer robes and seats, the more humility I wear and the love I give must be the measure of any who claim any position in the administration of the law of life.

Response

Thank you that your judgement is never harsh and exclusionary. You always declare love and belonging, you always administer mercy and grace. Thank you that you, the final expert of the law, never weaponise law, but you call, enable, bring awareness, and yet leave choice without exclusion to all who know you and love you. May the “experts,” who use your name, look more like you. I love being judged by you.

Meditation

Meditate – beware of the experts.

Consider:
How often have you allowed experts to cast judgements on you that have excluded you from love and salvation?
How harshly do you judge others? What are the terms of your punishments?