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Thursday 25 October 2012

Just one rule.

One of the fairly important ideas of Christianity is that God gave us free will. He didn't want us to be robots. After all, if you can just click your fingers and something happens, there's not much reward in it! He wanted us to choose him freely, not be forced to. That way, it would mean that much more if we did.
A book that I've read also suggested that it meant that Satan has no excuse - if even we, as mortal, tiny, stupid humans that don't know God that well will still choose him; then a grand, powerful, and mighty angel who has witnessed firsthand God's power cannot plead innocence.
But that's by the by.

Anyway. God gave us free will. Which means we can do absolutely anything. Well. We can't walk on water, or jump over a building. But we can make our own choices.

Often, man tries to impose a lot on that free will. And sometimes, for good reasons. Don't kill people. An extreme example, but that's a good reason. Don't steal from them. Don't cheat them.
Essentially, don't hurt them. Which is good.

But then...people started imposing a lot more rules.
If you do this in this particular way, or say this thing at this place, or go here, or don't do this obscure thing, then you're stuffed.
We've become the Pharisees. We have. We call ourselves free, and yet give ourselves more rules to live by than God ever did. And considering how many rules people seem to think he imposes on us, that's pretty impressive.

If a rule isn't there to stop people hurting each other, or to help people (and not their wallets) in general, then there's something distinctly wrong with the rule.

Jesus managed to sum it all up in one rule. Can you imagine that? Only ever living by just one rule?
Here it is: "Love your neighbour as yourself."

Love. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Cause it's pretty darn important.

Note: Yes, Jesus actually gave two rules; that was the second. The first was, love the Lord your God with all your soul, all your heart, all your mind and your strength. I just wanted to focus on the second.

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