I recently alluded to The Law.
Now, I'm not specifically talking about our current systems of laws. However, they probably in some ways help to understand the concepts shared by Andrew Farley in The Naked Gospel.
Instead, I'm talking about The Law of the Old Testament.
More specifically, as Farley writes, "performance hoops to jump through in order to impress God."
I can relate on a very personal level to what it is like living under The Law.
Sure, it is not a law written down in any ancient text. Rather, it is a self-imposed sort of law that was most prevalent in my early college years. It had to do with grades and performance. I still remember spending hours in the basement of the library (the dungeon as I thought of it) studying for tests, studying quizzes, studying, studying... Why? I was afraid of failure, afraid of losing scholarship money. And my sense of self-value was confined to academic performance. So after coming out of the dungeon, I would then wonder around campus knowing that something was not right but not able to understand what was wrong.
Only now, are the pieces starting to come together.
However, what is clear is that these types of laws - whether self-imposed or rooted in churches or other institutions - don't make much sense. What are some other vestiges of "law-mindedness?" Some things that come to mind are concerns over church attendance and belief that in order to get closer to God we need to do all kinds of activities.
None of this sounds like freedom.
It sounds like prison.
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1 comment:
We don't need The Law when we have the Holy Spirit. The HS is the energy we experience that motivates us to lay down our lives and love selflessly. It's the quintessential grass roots movement. We can often then find ourselves appearing to follow The Law but out of desire rather than obligation.
Last night I realized that I love and respect the sacrificial lifestyle of a follower of Christ regardless of any heavenly implications. i.e., if I were to conclude that everything ends at death, I still find the most fulfillment in loving other as Christ did - and dying for them - than all the supposed fulfillment that a secular subsistence promises. I don't know of much greater proof of the Holy Spirit's power in us than that.
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