Rules regulate our daily lives. Without rules we will be chaotic and head nowhere. Rules like laws were instituted to regulate life. God gave us the Ten Commandments for right living. However over-regulation will limit our freedom to be creative. In fact we were born in rebellion and so all we do is break rules. However there is another way. It is called the way of grace. God initially introduced laws to reveal how wicked our hearts are. We were born in sin and sin always breaks laws. I in myself is not good or bad but the sin in me makes me choose what is bad. This is what is described as Paul’s Romans 7 experience. Many are born again but still live in Romans 7.
There is a way out. Thanks be to God in Jesus we are no more bound by rules. It is not that we now do not uphold the law but our hearts have changed to do more than what the Ten Commandments require. This is the law of grace. This is the Romans 8 experience. How sad to see that many still prefer the old ways of pleasing God by rules. In the flesh we are proud to display our righteousness by boasting about our good works. Yet we know that our good works can never satisfy the righteous requirement of God. How foolish we are to keep in the old ways when the new has come to deliver us from our old ways.
Today Jesus is calling us to abide in Him as He abides in us. No more toiling and labouring under the old master. We have a new master who has paid the price for sin. Jesus’ death on the Cross paid the price and delivered us from the law of sin. Now we are free to live lives free from the power of sin and free to live abundant lives. No more labouring under the old tutelage but free to be me. I am so grateful for the salvation I enjoy in Jesus. Come and join me in the river of life and live.
