A RELATIONSHIP WITH RULES

Today is Wednesday.  I'm looking forward to tonight's Bible Study on the Names of God.  Tonight, I'm looking at Jehovah Jireh, the LORD will provide!  Wow.  We need that truth in this day in which we live.  I was reading in Leviticus this morning, and I have one truth to share:

A RELATIONSHIP WITH RULES- Today we are seeing stressed in the modern Church that it is all about Relationship, and that God doesn't care for the rules.  This runs contrary to the whole of Scripture however.  If you say that rules don't make the relationship, then we would have to agree.  That is very true.  But, if you say you can have a relationship without rules, then there is where we would part company.  God made the Israelites His people.  He called them His people and He gave them His covenant name:  Jehovah (LORD).  But He gave them rules.  In reading Leviticus 11-15 today I noticed that it was full of rules.  What to eat, what not to eat; what is clean, what is unclean; who is a leper, who is not a leper; who has a running issue, who does not have a running issue.  I mean it goes into great detail.  God wanted His people to be able to know what is clean and what is unclean.  God told them He wanted them to put a difference between the holy and unholy, the clean and unclean.  Today, God still has rules.  Not rules that go into such details as we see in Leviticus, but rules like:  Love one another, preferring one another, be ye kind, forgive, give, etc.  These are guiding principles that guide the relationship.  Every marriage has rules, or it will explode.  Every organization has procedures to follow; why would we expect less from God?  I'm not all about the rules, far from it, but I'm not in throwing out what God has clearly established throughout His Word.  We want the relationship... let us also embrace the rules God gives us. 

Have a blessed day!  Pastor Mike Mutchler