I love rules. I really do. Rules tell me what I can or cannot do. It gives me boundaries. The problem with rules for me is they are set in stone. I am quick to judge those who break rules but even quicker to justify my failures. Yes, a love/hate relationship with rules.
Luke 11: 37-52 are the woes to the Pharisees and Lawyers.
The Pharisees get three woes:
1. hypocrisy: tithe everything, even herbs, but neglect to do justice and love God.
2. love for the best seat in the house: they like the praise of others
3. like unmarked graves: those who follow Pharisees are deceived, they lead others astray.
Then it's the Lawyers' turn.
1. They interpret the law, make them hard to bear, but won't even help people keep the law.
2. Hypocrisy for building monuments to the prophets, of "whom they will kill and persecute."
3. Condemned for their interpretation of Scripture that "have taken away the key of knowledge" to understand God's plan of salvation and "hinder those entering in."
I find myself in both. I am like the Pharisee at times who makes sure the outside of the cup is clean, but my heart is not in the right place (vs. 39). I like to "look" a certain way or get a certain response and be praised for what I have done instead of basking in what He has done.
And sometimes, more than I like, I impose rules upon my girls, like the lawyers, expecting them to follow, but not helping them burden the weight of them. Can you say convicting? I set rules to keep routine and stability in the home, sometimes like a drill sergeant, "Do this, do that!" I don't enter into the rules myself, teaching them why they are good, how they help us, why they are needed, and how they can move their little hearts to actually like the rules. Instead, like the lawyers, I "do not touch the the burden with on your fingers." (vs. 46).
It should not be. Rules haven't saved me. They never can, never will. Only the righteousness of Christ has saved me and out of a deep love and revere for knowing him more deeply, serving him more joyfully, I follow the rules. It's out of an overflow of my heart that has been transformed that I am able to love the rules and appreciate them and know that when consequences come, it is for my good, his joy, even when it hurts.
My girls need me to enter in, to lift a finger, heck, a hand, to hold them, show them how rules are out of a joy and respect and walk with them until God transforms their heart and makes them his.
I must not take away the key of knowledge needed to understand God's plan of salvation. I have entered in and been saved, but they have not. I must do what I can, empowered by the Spirit, trusting in the Lord, to make sure they have heard and know God and pray fervently that he lights that on fire and just blows up their hearts and mind with who he is.
