"I FOUGHT THE LAW AND THE LAW WON"

 Are you old enough to remember that R&R song from 1966?  That was my spiritual story.


I've been melancholy lately...looking back at my road to God.  I spent thirty years without Him; now that I'm 64, I've had thirty-four years WITH Him.  Perhaps my melancholy is due to a couple of friends (a husband and wife) who both died this summer.  When Mike and I first married, they were our next-door neighbors.


When the four of us began our life journey, none of us knew the Lord.  Then in the early 70's, Bill and April found Christ, got weird, and Mike and I shunned them.  To us, they had become religious freaks.  You know the definition of a religious freak, don't you?  Someone who loves Jesus more than you do?


About seven years went by before Mike and I came to Christ at a parachurch ministry called Bible Study Fellowship.  Then Bill and April seemed normal and our friendship got a kickstart.  Today as I write this, I picture them arm in arm, grinning at this story.  We miss them both a lot and look forward to seeing them again.


Everyone has their own storyline to God.  Here's a phrase that used to gripe me.  "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."  I knew everyone has wildly divergent economic and ability starting lines, so how could we all be created equal?  Our equality is in our access ability to God.


During the first half of my life, my religious reach-of-choice was self-righteousness.  I did good things for God so He'd like me and I'd feel good about myself (maybe not in that order).  Now THERE'S a hamster wheel that spells exhaustion.

The year was 1978 and for the first time I was getting to the end of myself.  I looked UP in a study of the Bible.  It was the first time I had ever studied the Bible even though I was the Children's Coordinator of my church and had a pretty spanking clean attendance record (if I do say so myself...see the problem?).


God was gracious and began to show Himself.  He makes a promise that seekers will get insight.  I began to learn what it took to come into a relationship with the Almighty.  The way WAS NOT through the law.  My law-keeping gave me pride (not the good kind) and the pride made me not need God and that pushed Him farther away.  Of course, no one can keep the law and that's why in the song it says the law won.  Next comes guilt...and it's nasty twin, lack of assurance.  Then I was back on the wheel to do more for God.


The law has no power to blow life into a person because it's only a sin-revealer.

Here's what a man in the 1700's said about my legal struggle:

The law could promise life to me,
If my obedience perfect be;
But grace does promise life upon
My Lord’s obedience alone.

The law says, DO, and life you’ll win;
But grace says, LIVE, for all is done;
The former cannot ease my grief,
The latter yields me full relief. 

Ralph Erskine, 1745

I remember an old commercial for a product called Calgon.  A frazzled lady slid down in a hot bubbly tub and the voiceover said "Calgon, take me away".  That is what grace does.

My prayer was, "Lord, I am so sorry for ignoring you all these years.  My self-sufficiency must have been a stink in your nose because you wanted me to depend on YOU.  Please allow Jesus' death to cover my sins.  Please make me your child and show me your way."

Charles Spurgeon had great insight on this truth.  He said "when I thought God was hard, I found it easy to sin; but when I found God so kind, so good, so overflowing with compassion,  I smote upon my breast to think that I could ever have rebelled against One who loved me so and sought my good."


The law may have temporarily won, but mercy came running.


God had regard for me when I was lost and spinning that hamster wheel...living so far from Him in "religion".  All that wasted time still hurts my heart.  It's like what Christ said on the cross "Father, forgive them because they don't know what they do".  


His kind regard for me, and His desire that I be with Him now and forever...is wonderfully illustrated in the place He has prepared.  First Corinthians 2.9 says "no one's ever seen or heard anything like this, never so much as imagined anything quite like it - what God has arranged for those who love him."


Mother used to say "I love the thought of heaven, but I'm not getting up a busload".  Me, too, Mama.  We're not ready until He's ready for us.  But the hope of what is ahead gives dazzle to my soul.