No legalism please we are Christians
Sadly too many times Christians have mistaken discipleship with legalism. We trawl the bible looking for rules to obey and then get upset when we can’t obey them. But I’m not convinced that this was what Jesus had in mind in the first place.
Jesus does say that he has not come to abolish any laws but he also wants to go to great lengths to explain that following Jesus is about learning to think like Jesus thinks and not following rules and regulations.
This is always difficult for Christians because we don’t want to sound like wishy washy people who say it doesn’t matter what you do as long as it feels good but this is kind of what Jesus taught. But the feeling good bit is about making God feel good and not ourselves (although we feel good when we do what pleases God). God has given us a description of himself and what it is like in his kingdom but instead of saying, just do all these things and everything will be fine he says follow me and you will start to live like I’ve described.
Being a Christian is not about following rules its about developing a mindset and a way of feeling that pleases God. The benefit of this approach is that we then get to live the kind of life that God intended for us and this means we live life as it was designed to be lived (this is the best way by the way).
This all may sound confusing but simply put we don’t follow rules and regulations we follow a person – Jesus. To live properly we simply ask: “what would my life be like if Jesus were living it?” This doesn’t mean trying to live like Jesus did (e.g. carpenter, beard, dusty roads, sleeping under the stars, riding donkeys, etc) but trying to work out what Jesus would do given your life.
So next time you are tempted to think in terms of law remember that this was never Jesus’ intention for you.