Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today- laws just lead to punishment, that’s why God did away with law. He came to save not to judge and dish out punishment.
Romans 4:14-15,25 NLT
[14] If God’s promise is only for those who obey the law, then faith is not necessary and the promise is pointless. [15] For the law always brings punishment on those who try to obey it. (The only way to avoid breaking the law is to have no law to break!) [25] He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God.
Observation
Give me law and I will give you rebellion. I found a ‘contract’ the other day that was written for when my 15 year old son wanted to move downstairs into the rumpus part of our house. The contract set out the rules, laws, of his living in our house in the downstairs rumpus. Laws like – you will not have a fridge downstairs, you will always enter via the main door of the house, you will not eat downstairs, you will not entertain girls downstairs, the list of “will not’s” involved 15 laws, not to broken, and then at the bottom the signature of the one agreeing to the laws. As I read the contract some 12 years on, my son now grown and has moved out of the house, I realised that he broke passionately every single “you will not” law that had been agreed to.
Law brings rebellion, rebellion brings punishment. You see you can never obey the law. God knows us better than we know ourselves, He knows that if obedience to law is the way to live in His house then we will only ever end up being evicted. “The only way to avoid breaking the law is to have no law to break!” So God fulfills the law in Jesus, then attributes Jesus’ performance to us, as if we fulfilled all the laws, and then closes the law book forever. You cannot break God’s law when you are in Jesus, because there are now laws to break. Your rightness with Him is now and forever based on His promises of forgiveness and righteousness achieved and gifted in Jesus to us. Jesus’ death and resurrection, is how we die to law and obedience as the means of rightness.
If you want law, then no need for faith. If obedience to law is the way to be made right, then no need for Jesus and the promised forgiveness and righteousness. If you want law then you will never find rightness, you will only find punishment, for you will only ever achieve failure, for passionately or not, you will only ever end up breaking the law.
Hear the beauty of what God is saying – “The only way to avoid breaking the law is to have no law to break!” There is NO LAW TO BREAK. So many people don’t go near God because they believe they are too bad based on the goodness, the laws, the obedience, that they believe God demands. Why we can’t, won’t, hear the good news of no more law must break God’s heart. God has no problem with our behaviour except when we bring it to Him and try and convince Him that our goodness deserves His love. When we do that He only ever points out your badness. And then he says “no more laws, no more gritted teeth try hard goodness, just forgiveness and promised righteousness available to any who will exercise faith to receive this gift in Jesus.”
Application
I will never put law into the flow of my relationship with God. No laws to break will be the way I live my life. I will celebrate and run freely in Jesus’ gifted rightness and forgiveness. I will enjoy my God and His love and intimacy on my best days and on my worst. No more contracts that declare the “will not’s” for living in His house, just an open door that is never locked or closed.
Response
Thank you for fulfilling and then doing away with the law. Thank you for no more punishment and no more performance-based acceptance. Thank you that you do everything for right relationship and then invite me in. How good is life when you live continually, in all circumstances, on God’s unbelievable promise, knowing you are loved and accepted, never to be disqualified, and never at the mercy of shame and condemnation. I live this life, I am blessed!
Meditation
Meditation truth – no more law, promised righteousness in Jesus.
Consider
How often does my behaviour enter into the shape and intimacy of my relationship with God?
Do shame and condemnation have any voice in my life?
JOURNEY DEEPER