free from the law

Today in the One Year Bible, we read from Galatians 3:23-4:31. Paul tells us that the purpose of the law has been fulfilled. That we were given the law kind of like little kids are given rules to govern their behavior and keep them from danger. But when we grow up, we know the purpose of the rules, and we can break them in the right circumstances. As adults, our understanding encompasses the rules and the reason behind the rules.

As we grow closer to Jesus, we do the same with the law. We won't do things that violate what the law intended: to make us holy. But we might break one rule or the other, with the understanding of what the rule was for and why it was a rule to begin with. For instance, one of the ten commandments tells us not to lie. But if Nazis ask if you have any Jews in your basement, our adult understanding of the reason for that rule allows us not to tell the Nazis something they have no right to know.

The ten commandments also tell us not to kill, but we know as adults that there ARE times when killing is necessary: in defense of our family from an attacker, or in capital punishment when lifetime incarceration is impossible (desert island, etc).

So let's not get trapped back into thinking that we must keep all of the laws of the Old Testament in order to go to heaven. Or that we have to try with all of our might to be perfect and worry and fret every day about whether we're holy enough to go to heaven.

Instead, let's realize that the whole purpose of all of those laws was to teach us the two greatest laws, which encompass them all: love God, and love other people. And we don't even have to do those things perfectly... we only have to allow God to work through us and love people with our lives. Asking Him and trusting Him to do so.

God, thanks for teaching us the purpose of rules... and what is greater than the rules.