Pharisee Law or Christian Love

What is hope?  In most terms it is the belief that circumstances in the future will provide a better life than current or past experiences. How often does our level of hope escalate to great heights or fall into moments of despair?

Recently several circumstances have led me to see this issue from both spectrums. I got a letter a couple weeks from a person that reads this reflection sharing with me that her life was going great and finally for once in a long time she felt that her future had hope. She went on to say in her letter that those feelings quickly faded and despair set in when her son was arrested for stealing to provide for his drug addiction. She wondered why things looked so bright only to see them fade into the darkness that had become a norm in her life in times past.

Contrast this to another letter I got a few months ago from a young man that felt his life was in a tail spin and no matter what he did or how good he lived he could never escape the bondage of past mistakes. I recently heard from him again and he was amazed at how The Holy Spirit worked in his life. What seemed like the veritable cloud of darkness was actually a glimmer of light waiting for the right opportunity to shine.

Two people, two circumstances, two different outcomes, why? Obviously as long as we are north of dirt we cannot answer these questions with anything other than speculation. Since we cannot unveil the reasons from The Holy Spirit’s vantage point let’s unravel it from the human perspective.

Several times in the Gospels we see Jesus hanging out with sinners, which in our lives is exactly what we do. Why do I say that? Because unless there is another perfect being aside from Christ we are all sinners which also reveals the likeness of the model of Christ. He dined with sinners as do we. I realize that is shallow however stick with me for a moment and I will bring this together.

In almost every chapter of the Gospels we see the healing and forgiveness of Jesus. One would almost think that page after page we would get the hint that his model works better than ours. We also see that he constantly uses the Pharisees as the image of how not to conduct our lives. You see they would hold the law greater than love. Remember when Jesus healed the man with the withered hand in Mark’s Gospel? The Pharisees considered that blasphemy but Jesus considered it love.

You may be wondering how the second part of this pertains to the first, well here goes. Our lives will always have ups and downs. We will always have Pharisees looking out for you and they usually enjoy placing the dark cloud over your heads. Jesus on the other hand to most people is some elusive figure that sounds too good to be true so it is easier to believe the negatives of the  Law zealots than the love of the Christians that place heart and forgiveness above judgment.

The lady I spoke of first struggled hard with herself and in her own words even though her life was going great she knew she was living outside the law of love. Her life was on cruise control no doubt but the route had a dead-end. Her son as it turned out was also her angel. His arrest as bad as it was created in her a servants heart. She no longer saw criminals as evil she now sees them as people. She is going to start volunteering for women’s mentoring programs at her local jail and if possible encourage her small church to create a ministry aimed at helping addicts rehabilitate. This would not have been possible as long as she was blinded by the light that really projected darkness. She, again in her words, was a Pharisee. She was living outside the law of love but shining lights on others whose sins she felt compelled to magnify. It is amazing how great this story has turned out in a short amount of time.

The young man is another interesting story I have followed as much as I could. He was living a terrible life in every since of the word but one day circumstances forced him to change and change quick. He could not immediately move out of his surroundings but he did stop much of the life he was living. As time went on even though his local church and members of his community were not excited to see him he did persevere and their cold law turned into warm love. For awhile he felt totally outcast and without love however he did say that he felt he was getting the treatment he deserved. Now he has convinced his church to start an outreach program for lost sheep as he calls them. A point of reference though that needs to be brought out, this young man’s effort to reform fell on Pharisee ears at first and not Christian ears. You see friends sometimes people can’t change because we do not allow them to change. If our hearts stay cold their hope fades into the bitter despair of what many consider a life they deserve.

In closing take a look at yourself and see if you bring bright spots to the world around you by showing examples of love, or do you bring dark clouds by acting like a Pharisee and placing law above love. In our Christian world we owe it to ourselves and others to always be messengers of love. Jesus will handle the judgment so we can place our attention on other things since that is obviously not our job.

Peace to everyone and remember everyone has a story including you so make sure as you write more chapters in your book of life that you find ways to create bright spots not dark clouds.

Dale Childress