Take a moment to read Luke 11:14-54 before reading the devotional below.
When you strive to find the foolproof path to a life with God that has no mistakes and has a “God-says-I’m-good-enough” guarantee, you end up missing God. He could be standing right there in front of you, and you wouldn’t believe a word he said. You could witness miracles and stand there thinking, “Yeah… I think this guy is probably demonic himself.” How do I know? It is exactly what the Pharisees did.
I am a Pharisee. I have been convinced of that for a long time and to be honest, it scares me. When I see who Jesus picked to be his disciples, I know that I’ve lived too “put together” a life to qualify. The Pharisees knew the word of God, clung to it strictly and lived very disciplined lives in order to be sure they kept God’s law. (You can read more about the Pharisees here.) They wanted to like Jesus — they even invited him over for dinner. They tried to give him a chance. But when someone claiming to be from God (or maybe even God himself) sits down to dinner and doesn’t wash his hands it’s not okay. God’s law said, “Wash your hands before you eat.” Here’s this guy claiming to have a unique connection to God seemingly disobeying God’s own law. I can see why they came to the conclusions they did about him somehow being from Satan.
Jesus answers them by pointing out that he couldn’t be from Satan and cast demons out at the same time. He tells them that if they want to get what’s really going on they’ll have to look for a new Jonah (someone who spends three days in a dark, seemingly death-filled place and then suddenly reappears — hint, hint…). He tells them that they’ve been in the “light” so long they actually are in total darkness and have no idea. And the most telling judgment is in verse 46: “What sorrow also awaits you experts in religious law! For you crush people with unbearable religious demands, and you never lift a finger to ease the burden.” The message, also an important one for us today: rule-driven systems crush people.
Here’s your freedom for today: if your life is messy and filled with mistakes and you aren’t sure you know enough about the Bible yet, you are in a really great spiritual place. And if you have been a rule-following Christian for your whole life and think you know God really well and have all the important verses memorized and emblazoned on your coffee mugs, it’s not too late for you either. As much as Jesus called out the Pharisees, he never stopped pursuing them. Even the number one Pharisee of all time — Saul, who became Paul — got a second chance from Jesus. I can only hope and pray that God knocks me off my horse and blinds me one day if that is what I need to understand his heart. May I do nothing zealously stupid in the meantime.