Don't Mind the Rules; Mind the Mind

In our youth group Bible study in Romans we have recently covered chapters 12 and 13. Chapter 12 has one paragraph in it with 29 imperatives (verbs that tell us what to do). In chapter 13, we are told to submit to our governing authorities.

This can start to feel overwhelming - so many commands! So many rules! I thought we were set from the the law (Rom 6)!

And then throw in the mix that we should not submit to our governing authorities if doing so would cause us to violate God's will.

So we discussed with the youth how it is possible to take on all these commands and live them, plus how to know how to handle the "exceptions."

If we try to treat all of this as a list of commands like a law, we will end up in the exact same place as the Pharisees were in (and, sadly, it's a place where too many in the modern Christians find themselves today).

What Scripture really wants us to do is to understand God's mind on the matters of life, to know what He thinks about things, and to learn to think the same way. And then ... live according to God's mind on the matter. We don't obey rules - we obey a living God. If we try to accumulate rule after rule, then we'll eventually bog down and likely fall into legalism. The rules serve the purpose of revealing the mind of God. That's what we need to obey.

Learn the mind of God more than accumulating rules. Learning His mind means studying His revelation and developing a relationship with Him. But the more you learn the mind of God, the less you need to worry about rules and the more you can say, "The entire law of my life can be summed up in two commands: Love the Lord my God with all of my heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. In this, the entire law of my life is contained."