Day 4
"For you ignore God's specific laws and
substitute your own traditions." (Mark 7:8)
This is what Jesus said to the religious folks
of his day who were more concerned about their own reputation and power than
about God's plan for life. This is also
what Jesus would say to religious folks today who are more concerned about
Christian traditions than Christ. They are called legalists, and you should be
on the lookout for them.
It's been said that often traditions are
designed to keep living faith of the dead (the saints and Apostles). Yet what
legalists do is take those traditions and make them the dead faith of the
living.
I could say a lot about how legalism has split
churches and driven people away from Jesus, but all you have to do is ask a few
non-Christians why they don't accept Christianity. Most of the time their
response has something to do with the way they were treated by Christians, or
the way they observed how we lived our faith.
Bottom line is this: you are saved by grace and
sanctified by grace...period. The idea that you please God through behavior is
a lie designed to get believers thinking that they can earn God's approval or
something. It's the same old pride game, so if you're playing it - maybe it's
time to start reading the Bible.
Isaiah 64:6
– All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are
like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins
sweep us away.
Galatians
2:21 – I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be
gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!
Galatians
3:10 – All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written:
"Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the
Book of the Law."
I know what legalists are afraid of...if people
don't have a list of rules, they might go out and do anything they want- and
they are right. That's just how the Pharisees kept their followers toe tapping
to their tricky tune. Yet they missed the whole point of grace: if someone
hands me a million dollars, will I turn around and slap him in the face?
Heavens no! Jesus has given me infinitely more than a million dollars,
obviously I will live for Him...
What "list" has been laid down on you
that will supposedly keep God loving you? Is it regular devotions, secular
traditions, etc. etc? (Write your thoughts below)
This week, try erasing the list and making a new list filled with truths like these:
If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since God did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us
all, won't God, who gave us Christ, also give us everything else?
Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? Will God? No! He is the one who has given us right standing with
himself. Who then will condemn us? Will Christ Jesus? No, for he is the one who
died for us and was raised to life for us and is sitting at the place of
highest honor next to God, pleading for us.
Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity,
or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death?
(Even the Scriptures say, "For your sake we are killed every day; we are
being slaughtered like sheep.") No, despite all these things, overwhelming
victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
And I am convinced that nothing can ever
separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't. The angels can't, and
the demons can't. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the
powers of hell can't keep God's love away. Whether we are high above the sky or
in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us
from the love of God that isrevealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-39)
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