If I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times: "Christianity is not a list of rules--Christianity is a relationship." From this premise it is concluded that adherence and obedience to the law of God is not essential to or evidence of salvation.
The "feeling" that God is with us, or the "fact" that I have decided that I want Jesus to be my Savior, is considered to be the ultimate evidence of salvation.
But I wonder: if God's law is so good and perfect, and His Will is so wonderful, why are Christians so desperate to run from it? The Apostle Paul said, "The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, and just, and good." (Romans 7:12). Listening to Christians today you'd think the laws and commandments of God are relics at best and spiritually lethal at worst.
We had a Parent remove his son from our Sunday School because we taught him to sing, "If you're saved and you know it, then your life will surely show it." Heresy he thought. "Whether or not your life shows it, you're still saved" he argued.
WHAT VALUE ARE RULES?
Reason and experience teach us that rules are necessary to preserve order and to prevent anarchy and chaos. Imagine our roads if there were no well-thought out rules. Games would be impossible to score fairly without rules.
Rules not only provide needed boundaries, they also teach expectations. Several years ago when I was working to strengthen the obscenity laws in the State of Illinois, I was confronted by opponents who argued, "people are still going to get obscenity so why make it a matter of law?" One might ask if laws against murder are worthwhile since people still murder, or if laws against theft are good since people still steal. The fact is our laws are expressions of our values and virtues.
Our finite minds need the instruction and guidelines of Infinite wisdom. The laws, the commandments, the rules that God has given us, were given not only for our protection but for our instruction.
Rules reveal our rebellion to the Rule-Maker. The Apostle Paul testified that he was unaware that he had evil desire in his heart until the law of God said, "Thou shalt not covet." He said that the knowledge of what God expected revealed his own carnal, rebellious heart. Read Romans 7. "The good that I would I do not...The evil that I would not, that I do...Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?"
Finally, Rules are an objective evidence of our loyalty to the Rule-Maker. To the extent that we are committed to living in harmony with the law of God, we love God. Jesus said, "If you love me keep my commandments." (John 14:15). John said, "This is the love of God that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not grievous." (1 John 5:3).
WHAT RULES ARE VALUABLE?
All of the moral commandments are valuable.
The TEN COMMANDMENTS are valuable. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me... Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image... Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain... Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy... Honor thy father and thy mother... Thou shalt not kill... Thou shalt not commit adultery... Thou shalt not steal... Thou shalt not bear false witness... Thou shalt not covet..." (Exodus 20)
When Jesus was asked about the Commandments He summed them up into two: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." (Mark 12:28ff).
All of the rules for Christian living that are found in the the New Testament (especially in the concluding chapters of Paul's Epistles i. e. let him that stole steal no more ...let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth... Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you... Ephesians 4:28ff) all flow from the Great Commandments ennuciated by our Lord.
Every rule laid down in the New Testament is valuable! They are infallible, inerrant, and all written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
If you don't enjoy learning and doing what God expects today, why do you think you would someday enjoy heaven, where God's will is always done?
CAN GOD'S RULE BECOME OUR RULE?
Dr. Richard Taylor's book "Understanding Ourselves" answers the question this way:
"The natural self-willfulness of the carnal mind will feel profoundly that if God’s demands are accepted unconditionally, if this or that is to be given up or undertaken or altered, true happiness will never again be possible."
"It is when the Christian faces this parting of the ways, and with deliberate decision, seeing fully the painful cost, makes up his mind that he wants Christ unconditionally, that he wants holiness more than happiness, and that he is willing to say good-by to happiness forever if only he can please God, and in complete abandonment of all further selfish plans tells God so, …that the Christian will be able to say with the Apostle Paul, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20).
"When the battle of wills is settled, something wonderful happens. When we would rather be holy than happy we discover that we have happiness also—but on a higher and purer level than was ever before known. When we abandon our freedom and self-rights for total obedience, we discover that we are freer than ever before. When our fundamental inner being has been so restructured that Christ-pleasing is now the governing motive of life, we discover that pleasing Christ is pleasing self. And what a delightful, comfortable, pleasing self it proves to be." (Richard Taylor, Understanding Ourselves, pp.93-97.)
My father used to quote, "That man is truly free who is conscious that he is the author of the law he obeys." Indeed when our will is at one with God's will, then pleasing God is our highest joy, and peace with God our greatest aim.
The songwriter testified,
My stubborn will at last hath yielded;
I would be Thine, and Thine alone;
And this the prayer my lips are bringing,
Lord, let in me Thy will be done.
Sweet will of God, still fold me closer;
Till I am wholly lost in Thee;
Sweet will of God, still fold me closer,
Till I am wholly lost in Thee.
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