Can you imagine a marriage of following the RULES of love but never experiencing the MAGIC of the relationship? I honestly can’t believe anyone would want to be in this kind of marriage—can you? But—isn’t that often how Biblical Christianity is presented to us by the world and by religions who miss the whole point of the Bible?
Cover to cover, the Bible is about a Savior Who came to reconcile us to a RELATIONSHIP with Himself.
Unfortunately mankind has relegated the beautiful message of the Bible to just a set of harsh, controlling rules wielded by humans in order to exert control and instill fear. Living outwardly by the rules will NEVER change your heart because it will NEVER quench your deepest desires. Do you even know WHAT your deepest desire is? Your deepest desire—whether you know it or not—is a relationship with God.
Trying to make yourself better by ONLY “following the rules” is simply a tedious and miserable way to live!
We must recognize that the rules ARE important—but not for the sake of the rules themselves—but rather, to draw our HEART into the presence of God. Breaking God’s rules is what plunged us into a prison of darkness in the first place. After we ask Him into our heart to be our Savior and Lord, we are set free. But—the rules serve a very important purpose—to keep us close to Him in a relational sense. For example, when you say “I do” at the altar and pledge your life to your spouse, you are married—but then you still have to WORK at the relationship—right? Similarly, when you receive the gift of salvation—you are irrevocably God’s child, but you still have a choice about how you live with Him—right? Just like in marriage, we have a choice.
We can live by the rules of love, or we can live by the rules of selfishness.
When we spend time with God, we develop a love relationship with Him that MORE than sufficiently quenches our thirst. Jesus told the Samaritan woman:
“Whoever drinks of this water (from the physical well) shall thirst again: But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall NEVER thirst.”
John 4:13-14
Drinking from the world’s well (the well of things that pass away) just keeps us thirsty for more; but our relationship with God is so satisfying that we become so dependent upon Him that we feel we will die without His presence. As we draw closer to God, He changes our desires. We walk WILLINGLY by His rules because He loves us like no other.
The better we know God, the more we desire to follow Him in loving obedience.
