Rules, Rules, Rules

I've said it before, I'm a rules girl. I like rules because they set the boundaries for me. They set the expectations. You tell me what the rules are, and I know what's expected of me and how to perform. Without them, I can get a little lost and frustrated because I don't know if I'm performing up to your expectations.

Of course, this was great for my mom when I was growing up because I was a pretty good kid for the most part. The problem came in when I accepted and loved people for how they’ve followed the rules and met the standards and expectations I placed on them. If I followed the rules and they hadn’t, I was better, and I treated them like I was better. Sad? Yes. Did that pride ever cause me to fall? All too hard.

Lately it seems God is forcing me to face my demons one way or another. The past month for me has been one stressful month in trying to find my way through some issues. There’s now way God was going to allow me to ignore them this time, so He, in His faithfulness as a loving Father, has allowed different situations to overwhelm me so that I come to the end of myself.

Last week I really needed to hear from Him. It didn’t matter what, but I needed to just know…know that He would in fact speak to me.

…and that He did.

I opened my Bible early one morning and immediately closed it. I then spoke to Him out loud, “Take me where you need to…I NEED to hear you.” I was prompted then to divert from my scheduled reading from the gospels to Galatians.

Boy, was I freed up!

I spent over an hour reading it and then re-reading some key verses over and over. I’ve never read and understood Galatians the way I did that morning.

Quick overview – Paul is writing to the churches in Galatia about grace. Basically they had gone from the gospel of grace that he preached to them back to the ‘other gospel’ of law. They were becoming slaves again to ritualism when Christ had set them free and were now under grace rather than the law.

This is what the Lord was speaking to me about – being free under His grace rather than a slave to law, to rules. I’m not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Christ. As Galatians says, if my righteousness comes through the law, through works, then Jesus died in vain.

I had ‘fallen from grace’ and was attempting to be justified by the law.

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty for which Christ has set us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage,” says Galatians 5:1. I always thought this verse was talking about freedom from sin. Although that’s true in a sense, this is talking about being free from the bondage of living under the law.

I realized last week that I had again been living in bondage of the law. I had been attempting to be ‘justified’ by works and performance rather than by the grace of God. At the same time, I had been accepting and loving others by that same standard. It’s no wonder then that I’d felt so frustrated and trapped. I couldn’t measure up to the standard nor could anyone else. I was a slave.

So where is freedom and how do I attain it? Well, Jesus attained it for me. All I have to do is walk in it. I can walk in freedom from the law by walking in the spirit. Paul said that the law is fulfilled in this – loving my neighbor. Love is the fulfillment of the law, and I can be free to love people regardless of what they do or how they do (performance) because we’re no longer under bondage of fulfilling useless requirements.

The fruit of walking in freedom, walking in the spirit, is love, joy, peace patience, etc. Now I’m free to love people for who they are rather than by what they do, and I’m free to receive unconditional love.

What a relief this has been to me! What freedom I’ve received! I can be free to be me, and you can be free to be you.

Now you know why I’ve been absent for a while. I’ve just been ‘stuck’ (for lack of better word) reading Galatians over and over, gaining new understanding of God’s grace towards us.

It’s crazy too because I’ve read Galatians I’m sure hundreds (??) of times and knew it but never really KNEW it.

So thank God that His Word is truly living and active. It has the power and life to convict us specifically when and where we need it.

I challenge YOU to live daily in the grace and freedom Christ has provided us.