Law or Love

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

LAW OR LOVE

Luke 14:1-6

14:1 One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. 2 There in front of him was a man suffering from dropsy. 3 Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?"  4 But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him away. 5 Then he asked them, "If one of you has a son or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull him out?"  6 And they had nothing to say.

NIV

It is always difficult to defend yourself when you attempt to live by an exact list of laws or rules and regulations because it leaves absolutely no room for error whatsoever. Healing on the Sabbath was all about the rules they determined could be done on the Sabbath. We recall the time we spent in Israel and stayed at a hotel on Shabbat. The hotel was full of Orthodox Jews.  The elevators automatically stopped at every floor without pushing any button, because it was unlawful to push a button on the Sabbath. The Pharisees, if they had answered Jesus knew they would be caught in hypocrisy. In most of our denominations of today each has its published statement of faith and may or may not have a published list, but nevertheless have a set of rules and regulations to live by, with any ever higher list of qualifications for any position of leadership that does not have any scriptural basis to justify those qualifications. The point is, that our lives should be based on the word of God, living in a manner that pleases the Lord. No one can follow a set of human-established rules and regulations perfectly and usually will be found out by others as missing the mark and seen as a hypocrite. Jesus set us free from the law, except he did establish that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and that we should love our neighbor in the manner we love ourselves. This would mean we do no harm, and judge no one for missing the mark, especially because we have all missed the mark. Let us live a life of love and then we would not have to be concerned about what rules are for what occasion. If we all tried to live by the rules and cannot do it perfectly, when we are asked about our failure, what could we say, we would have to be silent as the Pharisees were. Let us not get entrapped and entangled by the rules and regulations, that are needed for order, such as the speed limit, but we cannot put the religious laws before our life, rather than the law of love.