Wednesday, April 3, 2024

James 4:11-12

James 4:11-12 

  I've heard some interesting sermons related to this over the past few years, and they've helped me understand.  Think about it this way -- if you look through the list of laws in your state or city and pick the ones you want to follow, discarding the rest, you're taking a position of authority over those laws.  You're deciding that you know better than the people who made those laws, and that you get to decide which are the best and which can be discarded.
  Now apply that to God's law.  If we judge the law, we're doing the same thing -- telling God that we know better, that we are the best authority, that we have judgment rights on the law.  Even if we only exclude one that we really, really don't like, it's still a grab at authority over the law and over God.  Therefore, we have to accept all of God's law if we are to accept God's authority.
  To do so means to accept that we sin and fall short of it, but it also pushes us towards amazement, because despite falling short of the law, God embraces us and redeems us.  And if I am broken and sinful and yet redeemed, who am I to harshly judge others as unworthy of God's redeeming grace?

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