The antidote to legalism
is God’s will
God did not intend to set us walking a tight rope trying to accomplish righteousness. He set us on the ground, a solid ground. He woke Adam in paradise and gave him a home.
And he asked Adam, “What’s that animal’s name? How about that one? What do you wanna call that one?” God is patient and there are a lot of animals. I have always wondered if Adam named them individually, like Sally, Jim, Howard.
He woke mankind and invited him to live. Right and wrong was God’s to know and his children would make mistakes, come to him, learn, try again and grow.
The law cannot replace God. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is not God. We are not God. There will never be day when he wake up older than, wiser than, or more important than God. God knows the law best, he wrote it.
In response to us judging him ungood, unworthy, and beneath us he says, “Uh on, Adam, you broke it. It’s ok, I’ll fix it.”
The capstone of all our effort to decide the most correct way to be righteous, and then writing a dissertation on morality and presenting it to God is: God loves me.
Without God’s will being the most important law to follow God is saying, “Unfortunately, you’re still trying to replace me. You’re efforts to impress me are unwanted and thus evil. Put down your dissertation and follow me. Can you compete with me and still love yourself? If I define love as perfect, all encompassing provision, unconditional love: how will you provide for yourself? Can you command the grain to grow? If you are spending your life deciding what makes a person unworthy, how are you treating yourself when you fail? And, what if my opinion matters? What if the truth is that my opinion matters most of all commands written? So than right and wrong is pleasing me? How will you find out what I want? You have to ask me. I’m here. There’s a liar in the world, but I am not a liar. There is a thief in the world, but I am not a thief. I am so good.”
The Lord says, “I love you. Do you love me?”
We say, “Yes.”
The Lord says, “And I have accomplished the law in you. Let’s go, my love. It’s living time!”
And, Jesus Christ said, “It is finished”
Making Sangria 