I lay in meditation this morning with a problem before. Sort of like the Zen monks who ponder insolvable propositions in order to free the mind.
Why is it, I asked, that some people search their scriptures and pull out a saying, turned into a rule, for other people to live? Maybe themselves, too.
And yet, they ignore other sayings from their scriptures that are, shall we say, inconvenient for them to follow or judge others with?
And I was answered. Many ways.
I now understood why the apostle Paul wrote that if you choose to live by rules, then you must live by all of them. No exceptions. Living life by rules means you must not break even one. There is no going back.
He was the supreme rule-follower. He discovered, and now I understand deeply, that living by rules and forcing others to live by your rules is a dead end on the road to life.
Better is to worry about yourself. Have you chosen a path of life that leads to true life? That is the entire message in the letter to the Galatians. But you find that teaching throughout the New Testament.
When you throw off the chains that hold you to rules, then you just live in God’s spirit. And then we find a life that rules will never give—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Why live a life of judgement and bitterness when you can have that?
Faith Venture 
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