Rules Can’t Rule, but Love Does

It has been quite a while since I posted on this blog. Not because there has been nothing to say, but because all I wanted to say was angry and hurtful and about how people ought to keep the rules of the Kingdom. In other words I was merely wanting to be heard without being accountable for what I would say. Somehow during that season I managed to completely avoid being on here, God has been using this season of silence to remind me the He rules the Kingdom not the rules of men.

I have always tried to walk some imaginary line between the legalities of the faith and the grace of God which seems to have no end. What is funny is that more and more I have been wanting others to follow the rules while I was hoping for grace. The selfishness of such a position escaped me for such a long time. It is becoming clearer how deceptive self can be when self is being served  and self sure wants everyone to keep the rules that self values most. So the clarity that has been coming into my life is that God is God and He can do whatever He wants. And since that is far better than anything I can devise or implement, self and its love of rules is of no use.

“For I know that God is great and that our God is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in the heaven and in the earth, in the seas and in all the deeps.” (Psalm 135:5 – 6)

Everything God does is pleasing to Him. But His love is so perfect and limitless that what pleases Him benefits us. Yes, He instructs and commands us in how to live and what our lives represent; but when we walk in obedience it is our response to His love and our expression of love back to Him. This does not guarantee easy circumstance or that He will explain Himself to us. That is the perk of being God. However, this one thing we can be confident in – He loves us and that love will rule us and guide us far better than rules of conduct created by men to control men. I never kept the rules in school because of some deep love for the principal, I just didn’t what my rear end to have a meeting with the paddle. As I see the love of God towards me, even in my selfish and arrogant posturing I simply want to please Him and walk in the flow of love that he has promised. Being ruled by love is the lifestyle of those who live in the Kingdom and know that they are known by their King.

“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and my father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with Him.” (John 14:23)

When that flow of love is our reality, we will not declare to others a set of rules that they must live by. Instead we will make known His goodness and kindness through the lives we live. I want to live in love not rules. And I am not there yet, but He will take me. I know for a fact he will take any who have wearied themselves in the service of self and it rules, give them rest and show them the rule of love.

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