Laws

One day I asked my son, “What did you learn is Sunday school today?”  Tom answered, “Lynn talked to us about laws and asked if we had any rules in our house.”

“Do we have any laws?”  I asked.  Tom looked at me in disbelief as if to say, “Are you kidding?”  Then he spouted out, “Don’t run down the hall!” “Don’t yell in the house!” “Don’t slam the doors!”  He added a few more before he said, “And I told Lynn that I was glad that we didn’t live on a farm because we’d have to collect the eggs, feed the pigs, and milk the cows!”  Needless to say, I was amused by what he said.

I must have the same look on my face when I hear Christians say that there are very few laws in the New Testament.  I hear and see a law every time Jesus speaks and every time an apostle picks up a pen.  This might be because I have issues with authority, but listen to what Paul writes: “Love must be sincere.  Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.  Be devoted to one another in love.  Honor one another above yourselves.  Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.  Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.  Share with the Lord’s people who are in need.  Practice hospitality.” (And that’s only 5 verses—there’s more—See Romans 12).  I’m fairly confident that these are not heavenly suggestions or apostolic advice, but are commandments.

It is burdensome to keep all of the New Testament laws and I often feel oppressed.  Yet, in the midst of my weariness, I am constantly reminded of one command.  You know the one.  It’s when our Commander-in-Chief declares, “Come to Me!”

Whether I’m badly wounded, despairing, desperate, despondent, or exhausted, I hear the command, “Come to Me,” being linked to a promise—the promise, “I will give you rest.”  (Matthew 11:28-30) And even when I still have the slightest strength to be resistant to this command, I also hear an invitation to find relief.  (FYI, thus far, I have surrendered to His demand because I have found His Word is irresistible and true.)