Here is the revelation shaping my life today – you have to decide what is more important rightness or love? You can’t serve both, one must be your master, and the other be your servant.
Luke 6:6-11 NIV
[6] On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shrivelled. [7] The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. [8] But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shrivelled hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” So he got up and stood there. [9] Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” [10] He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was completely restored. [11] But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.
Observation
When you get stuck on law then you only see things as black and white, you either obey the law or you break the law. The law becomes your master lens for life. Good and evil become inconsequential, all that counts is the law. And when the law is broken you become “furious,” even if good was the outcome of the breaking. And all you see are lawbreakers and how you might deal with them.
We love law because we think it keeps us safe, gives us a sense of security, and gives us a sense of power over others. If I know the law I can judge, right v wrong, in v out. And I can be secure in my rightness and my goodness, and I can judge others which gives me power and more security. This is why we can’t stop our obsession with making laws. But if I am of the law then the law becomes my absolute focus and it must be served without question. Keeping the law becomes all that matters. “To do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it,” these are not the focus, keeping the law is all that matters.
This is why God threw out the law. There are no laws left in God’s economy, other than the law of love, which is really no law at all. We still want God to be into law, so we can become law keepers and law judges, but He is totally out of the law business. Jesus broke the law constantly so as to reveal its robbery, its absurdity. The law does not lead to life, it leads to heavy loads that suck life, it leads to judgement and condemnation that destroys love, and ultimately it leads to death because none of us can keep the law. So stop seeing God as an exponent and judge of law, he moved out of that business and wants us to do the same. He fulfilled the law for us for all time, then closed the book and left it closed. You see love fulfils all law, so go with love and no need for law. Law says “man stays in pain with shrivelled hand because it’s Sabbath,” Love says, “stretch out that hand, the sabbath serves love, not the other way around.”
Application
For too long God’s people have been seen as Pharisees with law books shaking them in the air in judgement, regardless of the pain it causes. We have to be people of love not law. Giving ourselves in love, not judging others from a distance with our laws, must be the mode of a cruciformed life shaped by the life of Jesus.
Response
Thanks for ending law. Thanks for the life of love. Thanks for freeing me from the law and being a law enforcer. Thanks for inviting me to live loved, and be love, it’s a beautiful life compared to law.
Meditation
Meditate – I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?
Consider:
How much are you trapped in a life of law? How upset do you get when the law is broken, and how do you look upon those who do the breaking?
Have you laid down your law book for the life of love
JOURNEY DEEPER