Who rouses Him from among the dead, you also being dead to the offenses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He vivifies us together jointly with Him, dealing graciously with all our offenses, erasing the handwriting of the decrees against us, which was hostile to us, and has taken it away out of the midst, nailing it to the cross.
Colossians 2: 13 - 14, Concordant New Testament
I watched an internet video the other night of a street preacher plying his trade when something he said caught my attention. His claim, "If you're in a church that is telling you don't do this or don't do that, find another church!" I would tend to agree. Over the centuries the mainstream church has become less about speaking Jesus and more about being the default rules committee for all of mankind. Indeed, the church will lecture us what we should do, when we should do it and who we should do it with. All of this in an effort to "Be more like Jesus." The issue that I have with this overloading of rules and regulations is that when we are talking of the freedom we find in our union with Christ, there is very little room for the rules and regulations of the mainstream institutional church. Why? Because rules and regulations fly in the face of freedom. How is it that we can be free if we are continuing to hold fast to the restrictions of the church? {Paul to the Galatians 5:1}. Granted, these rules to live by have deep seeded roots in the original ten commandments handed down to Moses {Nehemiah 9:13}. But I would argue that the ancient Israelites made a bad choice by building that altar while Moses was up on the mountain communing with God. For our part, we all have made the wrong choice from time to time {Paul to the Romans 3:23}. So, even though the mainstream church rules committee has given us rules to live by, they continue to preach that sin remains the issue. Go figure. Despite having rules to live by, we continue to prove ourselves as sinners in the eyes of the church. Well, maybe it's not we who are the ones to blame after all. You know who it is that doesn't condemn us of sin? God! It is the Father who dispatched His Son to become sin that we would be free of it {Paul to the Corinthians (2) 5:21}. It is Christ Jesus who gave Himself, by His own choice, to die on that cross for us {Lukes Account 22:42}. The reality is, when God created us in His image, He created us with the innate ability to choose freely on our own. To choose between the rules set before us or union with Christ {Johns Account 14:20}.
A wretched man am I! What will rescue me out of this body of death? Grace! I thank God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Consequently, then, I myself, with the mind, indeed, am slaving for Gods law, yet with the flesh for sins law.
Paul to the Romans 7: 24-25, Concordant New Testament
It is common knowledge that despite the myriad of traffic law regulations in the nation today that people continue to break these rules set before us. It seems that the more rules that are put before us, that the more of these rules we disregard. Knowing this, how is it that the rules to live by instituted by the church will go unbroken? In my opinion, it is simply a open invitation to behave badly. Or, the invitation to CHOOSE to behave badly. For being created in the image of the Father, we have that ability to choose what we will do each and every day. The apostle Paul spoke to this in Romans {Paul to the Romans 6:1-2}. Paul posed the question of "Persisting in sin that grace may be increasing?" But as the apostle proclaims, "We, who died to sin, how shall we still be living in it?" Indeed, it is Christ Jesus who has not only taken away those decrees which were against us, but has declared us dead, indeed, to sin {Paul to the Romans 6:11}. So it is that I agree with the words of the preacher, if you're in a church that is telling you what to do, how to do it and who to do it with...find another church!
What, then, shall we declare? That we may be persisting in sin that grace may be increasing? May it not be coming to that! We, who died to sin, how shall we still be living in it?
Paul to the Romans 6: 1 - 2, Concordant New Testament
~Scott~
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