Seize the Moment – Day 582
The Danger of Legalism!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Wednesday, October 20.
Are you familiar with Jesus’ famous Parable of the Good Samaritan?
In Luke 10:30-37, Jesus answered a lawyer’s question about the Law with this parable. Jesus taught who our neighbor is by describing how it was a Samaritan, a person hated by the Jewish people, who showed God’s love to the dying Jewish man. To emphasize this point, Jesus’ story included two Jewish elite, a Levite and a priest, who avoided the dying man.
Yes, there was a deep racial tension between the Jews and Samaritans that informed this story and to this day, very relevantly, that gives Jesus’ parable the profound impact of teaching us to “love your enemy” and “love your neighbor as yourself.”
But there is more to the story and that’s the scandal of Jesus’ parable!
These religious men, like the lawyer who was trying to trap Jesus with his questions, were putting the letter of the Law before the heart of God. Jesus came to return God’s people back to the heart of God and the purpose of the Law—to deliver God’s people from sin to live as God’s image bearers.
Don’t let your religion blind you to the heart of God—Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10)!
Seize the moment and return to the heart of God by loving your neighbor as yourself, not allowing racism nor religion to prevent you from being an image bearer of God.