Our culture is constantly bombarded from every direction by rules and regulations that maintains morality in a society? From road signs to taxes, everyone is controlled by external agents of which we have little voice in the matter. Rules are created as if they were a formulaic equation for societal success and happiness. This is not to say societal rules are all bad, but needless to say, they do create a tempting tension to break. After all, aren’t rules made to be broken?
“It’s ok not to report those taxes.” “Downloading copyrighted songs aren’t that big of a deal”. “That’s not technically cheating” and the list goes on and on...
Christianity is apparently no exception to rules and regulations. In fact we have created a word that links Christianity to rules and we call this word, legalism. We have made Christianity into a rule book of “thou shalts” and thou “shalt nots.” The Old Testament has over six hundred laws. In fact, the Old Testament appears to portray God as a jealous, blood thirsty control freak; this was my take when I first read the Old Testament. My temptation was to write a paraphrase version of the Bible provided in one simple statement, “Don’t have fun”. This wasn’t a good idea. At any rate, I saw God as a cosmic killjoy; He was a deity sitting on a heavenly throne boasting in humanity’s misery as they blindly submit themselves to His big rule book of do’s and dont’s. This idea of God is nothing new. In fact, most of us feel this way to a certain degree when tragedy strikes our life.
High school football is a way of life for everyone in rural Mississippi. Our community had high expectations for our team when I was the junior quarterback. Oftentimes, I would leave my mouthpiece in my pocket because it was being obstructive in my mouth trying to communicate to the rest of team during the cadence. Our coach saw me place the mouthpiece in my pocket one play and took an appropriate action so that I would never do it again. Let’s just say his appropriate action worked. Late in the fourth quarter in the second round of the playoffs, I dropped back seven yards in the pocket and greeted under my face-mask by the 220 pound linebacker. The only part of the sack I remember is our offensive tackle handing my helmet back to me 15 yards from the line of scrimmage. Embarrassingly, I proceeded to jog to the wrong sideline. I still wonder what would have happened that night if I would have failed to use my mouthpiece. What appeared to be an obstruction, my mouthpiece, was actually for my protection. In the same way, God’s Word appears to obstruct our freedom by providing rules, but actually it protects us from getting our teeth knocked out by the sting of sin.
What part of your life would you want to change? Why? What part of your life do you carry the most baggage? May it be that if you would have been obedient to God’s Word, you wouldn’t want to change anything at all about your past. Why is this? God is not a cosmic killjoy; He wants you to encounter the most joy which is found in Him through the obedience of His Word.
Joy is the end result of experiencing God through obedience. Pursuing and obeying Him will be more pleasurable than any sin has to offer.
The idea that God is a cosmic killjoy is the oldest misconception of theism. This misconception is the very ploy that Satan used on Eve in the garden of Eden in order to convince her to eat of the forbidden fruit.
The greatest need we have is not rules to live by, but rather, a calling to live for.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” John 10:10
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