Following the Law

Galatians 4:10-12
You are trying to earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or years. I fear for you. Perhaps all my hard work with you was for nothing. Dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to live as I do in freedom from these things, for I have become like you Gentiles-free from those laws. (NLT)

We live in a world filled with laws. Our government creates new ones daily. Who knows them all? Even the lawyers only know a few. They know the ones they have studied for the practice they have. As new cases are presented to them, they discover the laws that apply.

There are many laws, even some which have been around for hundreds of years that make no sense today. The more laws, the more restrictive a society we live in. We have to wear seatbelts when we drive. Those that smoke have to do it some many feet outside a building. The list goes on. Soon we will not be allowed by law to use incandescent light bulbs as they must be replaced by the new energy efficient florescent ones.

The Jews lived by their laws and were under the impression that strictly following them was the way to heaven. Mess up and you missed it. The fact is, as Jesus pointed out hundreds of years later, it is impossible not to mess up. Nobody except a perfect man could ever live up to all of them, and there was only one perfect man. He fulfilled the law so we would not have to live by it.

Paul preached to the Gentiles about Jesus, not about obeying the law. He did not ignore the law, but he knew it was following Jesus that brings salvation, not the law.

We are not to live encased in a cage of rules that limit our activity. Our life is not to revolve around a building full of believers; it is to be focused on the commission Jesus gave to each of us.

We are to be in the world, in the daily marketplace, letting the Holy Spirit guide us to encounters where we can share the good news that Jesus is alive today!