Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – right, law, demands defending and enforcing, and it demands it from a posture of high importance. Defending it feels heroic and we are drawn to heroism. We bow our knee to its demand and grieve our God. Nothing trumps love, no law, no right, no matter how high you hold them, they never trump the law of love. We have allowed this grieving to happen to often, we must bend our knee to love for love loves above all else, and we serve love Himself. Be hero’s of love.
Mark 3:2-5 TPT
[2] Everyone was watching Jesus closely to see if he would heal the man on the Sabbath, giving them a reason to accuse him of breaking Sabbath rules. [3] Jesus said to the man with the paralyzed hand, “Stand here in the middle of the room.” [4] Then he turned to all those gathered there and said, “Which is it? Is it against the law to do evil on the Sabbath or to do good? To destroy a life or to save one?” But no one answered him a word. [5] Then looking around at everyone, Jesus was moved with indignation and grieved by the hardness of their hearts and said to the man, “Now stretch out your hand!” As he stretched out his hand, it was instantly healed!
Observation
Jesus exposes the law for its misplaced priority. Love is never trumped. If you want to grieve God put the law, any laws, above the law of love. How often we have hardened our hearts to love so we can uphold our version of ‘right,’ which we have elevated to law. Every time we dismiss someone from our presence, every time we exclude someone based on our version of ‘rightness’, we harden our hearts to love and grieve God. Destroying a life by upholding our law thinking rather than introducing them to love by being love to them, is never okay in the Kingdom economy, it grieves God deeply. This is the crime of religion, the elevation of law above love, and Jesus came to challenge this horrific principle every time he encountered it.
It’s crazy because when law above love is challenged, “no one answered him a word.” We all go quiet because we see how ridiculous it is, but we do it! We must allow Holy Spirit to awaken us to our hardness of heart. When we choose law obedience above love expression and healing we have hardened our hearts to the very gospel we preach. Your version of right, or law, has a place in your journey, or your tribes journey, but when it excludes, discriminates, disqualifies, then it has trumped love and you are grieving your God.
Right can sound so right and it can arouse us to its defence that we become blinded to the greater of love. I would never be loved if law trumped love, none of us would. As the founder of The Salvation Army, William Booth, famously said, “love is everything.” Let us be shaped by Jesus as was William.
Application
Be aware of the subtlety of the law, of right, to creep in and hijack love. Watch my words, my actions, my thinking, to see where love has been made to submit to law and being right. Live a life that reflects the position that Jesus gave to love, a position that nothing ever trumps. Help me to see the stupidity of placing law above love.
Response
Thank you for this life of love. Thank you that you put law aside that you can be love to me. Thank you that you call me to love not right. Thank you that you send me to love not to enforce right. I love this life of being loved to be love.
Meditation
Meditate – Which is it? Is it against the law to do evil on the Sabbath or to do good? To destroy a life or to save one?”
Consider:
Do I know how loved I am by God? Are my rhythms of intimacy always posturing me to experience and encounter His love?
How into being right and the enforcing and upholding of right am I? Do I sacrifice love for this end?
JOURNEY DEEPER
