living by the law....but which one?

God’s people of the first covenant were given ten rules by their Lord.  They then multiplied them into thousands—hedge around hedge of regulations to govern and restrain them from breaking the first ten.  We as Christians could be guilty of doing that too, with our prescriptive laws regarding human behavior. Not long ago some of our most prestigious Christian universities had a moral code that forbade dancing.  In 1985 Judson College had such a code.  One of the teachers who lived on campus described how he and his bride would pull down all the shades, turn out most of their lights and dance in the near-dark, a small act of rebellion. 

Jesus didn’t add a lot of “rules” to the original ten.  If anything, he distilled them down to two: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”  A practicing Roman Catholic friend once told me that living by those two laws was hard enough, so he was focusing on that and letting God worry about the rest. 

Psalm 45:4 says, “Ride out victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness…”  The triumphalism of these days straps its sword to its thigh and rides out for the cause of truth, but meekness is often forgotten.  What if what we think is truth, isn’t?  What if the hill I am willing to die upon today is on the wrong side of history?  

The one hill that we can know is on the right side of history is Calvary.  In her book, “All the Time” our daughter Meredith writes, “Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross occurred…because he knew I couldn’t be perfect…He did this to have a relationship with me, not so that I would tiptoe through life, constantly worried about messing up.”   I know that I have “messed up” and will keep messing up in many ways.  I will have unenlightened moments to repent.  As a teen-ager I couldn’t quite see the criminality of the President of the United States that I had campaigned so hard for in 1968.  I got it wrong.  I messed up.  And I’ll do it again. 

Tim Keller describes wisdom as not less than being moral and good, but quite a bit more. Godly wisdom is knowing the right thing to do in the vast number of cases where the moral rules don’t apply.  We won’t all agree on what those situations are.  But in today’s politically charged climate, we might want to at least consider that we could be on the unwise side of almost any issue, whether it be racial inequality, climate change, immigration policy, gun control, or gender politics.  Any position that we’ve arrived at because of our safety or privilege could look completely different in light of Jesus’ love for the outcast, the disenfranchised.  Jesus was deeply moved by human suffering and moved to embrace the hurting.  Ultimately Jesus’ compassion (in Greek “oiktirmos”) is displayed in his decision to travel his journey to the cross.  He knew my inability—OUR inability--to perfectly embody justice, mercy and self-sacrificing love, and he allowed all the judgement on “messing up” to fall squarely on his shoulders.  He can bear the brunt of it.  That is what makes Good Friday good. 

When I see my own errors or the mini-aggressions of total strangers and of those dear to me, I still fret.  And then I remember that I have accepted the love of a god who has redeemed all of my worst mistakes…all the collective sins of the world.  That is my meekness AND my triumph.

Love, Liz

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God”.                Micah 6:8

“Relations between church and state have vexed believers from the time of Constantine to the days of the Christian Coalition…Pope Innocent III died from exhaustion at age 55, finding the task of ruling both church and state too much for mortal man.”      
                                                   Robert J. Morgan 

“Let all things their Creator bless, and worship Him in humbleness."                           
                                                   St. Francis of Assisi 

If you still haven’t purchased Meredith Barnes’ book “All the Time:  Daily Devotions Finding Faith in the Everyday Moments”, you may do so by going to https://rstyle.me/cz-n/euat6icivex
And if want to help promote the book, would you consider leaving a five-star rating and review on the Amazon website?  I’ve just learned that you can do this even if you did not purchase the book from Amazon.