The Law is our teacher to show us our need of Christ (I)

Suppose, in setting boundaries for your 5-year-old daughter, you tell her that if she so much as puts her foot over an indicated line, she will be grounded for a week. If she, looking defiantly at you, then stands on the right side of the line and deliberately puts just her foot over the line, what you will do? Perhaps you should not have made the punishment so severe, but you did, and now you tell yourself “It’s only a minor infraction, I’ll let it go.” Well, if you do this, what you are really doing is telling her that you don’t mean what you say!

In the 12 step program Al-Anon, spouses of alcoholics learn that they are often enablers. That is they facilitate the behaviour of the alcoholic by covering up for them perhaps with their boss, or by excusing the behaviour, hoping against hope that they will straighten up. It may seem loving, but what it does is it takes away the responsibility from the spouse, it shields them from the consequences of their actions, and actually they have no need to change. It was the consequences of my own poor choices (we reap what we sow Galatians 6:7), that helped me to see my need of Christ, my need to be rescued, my need of a saviour!

We all need rules growing up in order to be safe. We need to hold daddy’s hands crossing the street. A child needs boundaries to be safe, and ultimately with a loving parent the child understands this, even though he or she may test the boundaries. But like a parent with his or her child, God ultimately wants relationship rather than rules. When I was a child I understood as a child, thought as a child, acted like a child (1 Corinthians 13:11). I need to grow up, and what I did not learn as a child, I had to I learn the hard way. But I did learn, I learned that when God says “no,” it is for our provision and for our protection. I learned that the rules, the Law is there to protect me until I could learn to choose the good, to choose Him.

Father, You always wanted our interaction with You to be about relationship rather than rules. But as in this morning’s quote from Galatians 3:24 we needed the Law as a guide to keep us out of trouble. But even after salvation we need to obey You. You told us Lord Jesus that we are Your friends if we do whatever You tell us (John 15:14). But You are not some celestial Scrooge wanting to take away our fun. No rather You know that in this kind of relationship with You we find fullfilment and hope and joy and peace and destiny. We find our purpose in the plans that You have for us. This, and only this, will lead us into fullness of life in Jesus Name Amen