Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
I don't know about you, but I remember growing up and feeling like some of the rules that my parents had in place felt so pointless, and like all they wanted to do was keep us in bondage. Things like putting on a bicycle helmet to go hang out with my friends and ride bikes and things like holding their hand while crossing the street or putting on a seatbelt.
Things that now, as this version of me, make total sense for a loving and caring parent to put in place for their child. What's so interesting is sometimes our relationship with God can feel the exact same way. Do we really understand the difference between restriction and bondage?
Today we're going to lean into James chapter 1, verse 25 and it says, “But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don't forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.”
A Change in Perspective
What's so interesting is nothing changed with the rules. The rules didn't change. What changed was me. My view, my understanding, my level of maturity. And now I see those same rules through the lens of love. And also what's interesting is they actually gave me more freedom than I realized.
I know from my relationship with God, there are things that He asks of me that I don't fully understand. But what I do understand is His heart for me as my Father, that He loves me. So sometimes what's helpful is reading a verse through the heart of the Father and seeing if that makes a difference in our understanding.
Seeing Through Love
Let's do that together. It says, "But if you look carefully into the perfect law," what if we change that word to perfect love? Does it mean something different? "But if you look carefully into the perfect love that sets you free. And if you do what it says and don't forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it."
It's from a place of love and protection. Maybe you're a parent. Maybe you're an older sibling. Maybe you're neither. But you have someone in your life that you care very deeply about. If you knew something in their situation that could potentially be harmful, wouldn’t you want to protect them from it? It's the same thing with our loving Father.
Maybe we should try to reframe the things that God asks of us, and put them from the perspective of love.
The True Blessing
The other piece is, it says, "Then God will bless you for doing it." I know oftentimes we think of blessing through the lens of material things or God opening some door or something like that. And it's not that He can't do those things - He can. But maybe the blessing in this verse is actually the protection and the freedom and the love that we experience by obeying the law, by actually doing what He asks of us because there's protection in it.
Maybe that's the blessing - we actually get to live more free lives than we would on our own, or if we were following the world.
My encouragement today: allow God to reveal to you where He wants you to reframe things, to see it maybe a little bit different.
