Those are the rules…

Image by danoxster via Flickr

You hear people say that God is a big rule keeper… and that he demands so much from us… and I think REALLY?

I’ve been reading Genesis (the beginning of the world as my 8 year old puts it) and it seems to me that God gave us everything we needed… I mean EVERYTHING and only one rule.

God basically made the world to please and inspire and be wonderful just for us… and then he handed us the keys and said “there you go look after this baby for me… I made it for you” and then he added “Oh just to let you know you can eat the fruit from any of the trees except one”

OK that seems pretty easy doesn’t it…

ALL the trees are ok to eat from except one!

It wasn’t like “Here’s the car… oh and by the way the clutch slips, just watch out for that!” – it was I’ve only made one rule for you to follow and this is it!

And so God started the world as a World of GRACE.

It’s pretty cool huh?

Even in Acts there was more of a focus on less rules and more grace.

The apostles came up with this for new believers in the early church.

²⁸ “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no greater burden on you than these few requirements: ²⁹ You must abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. If you do this, you will do well. Farewell.”

So basically here were the rules…

Don’t do anything that is sexually immoral… and don’t hack off the Jews.

Yet we have this thought that we have a whole lots of rules and regulations to follow in order to keep ourselves in Gods favour… the relatity is that when we become born again (become a Christian) it says we are made NEW… that means we are ALREADY born into Gods favour…  lets not get stuck on the ‘rules’…

Here is the reality…

God is concerned more about the condition of your heart…

Don’t get lost in rules and regulations… they can’t get you closer to God.

God knew this…

The early church knew this…

yet we have forgotten!