religion blinds; grace enlightens

He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

Matthew 5:13-14

The tragedy with the Pharisees was that as close as they thought their smug legalism got them to God, they were really totally alienated from God in their sin and self-righteousness. The real proof of this was their failure to recognize God when He spoke directly to them as Jesus. Religion blinded them and made them blind leaders of the blind.

When men twist God's truth to their own path, the result is a religion led by the blind. It is what Jesus encountered in the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. It can be found today. I have seen it far too often. I have even fallen for it in fundamentalist legalism of my past, and can slip into it again so easily. I remember being liberated by searching out the New Testament for myself in my teens and finding none of the works-based rules of my childhood in there.

And so I have been on a life's quest to live in that truth without reverting to simplistic rules that miss God's grace. I want to be a plant rooted in good soil by the Father. I want to be nurtured in His grace, live in it, grow in it, and show it in a world that needs grace over sin... not rules-based false righteousness that creates more sin.