"...the first rule is obey all rules..."

Barney Fife: Now here at the Rock we have two rules. Memorize them
until you can say them in your sleep. Rule number one: obey all rules.
Rule number two: no writing on the walls

During a tour of the Mayberry Jail, Deputy Barney Fife told the crowd, “there are two rules in the jail, first rule is obey all rules.  The second, don’t write on the walls because it is hard to get off.”  Obey all rules.  That one sticks with me.  I remember a woman I knew in San Diego who worked for OSHA, who told me “it is impossible for me to know all the rules, but I can promise you I can walk into any business and find something wrong.”    Gives new hope in the meaning “hi I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”  But rules are everywhere, and are made to protect us, often times from ourselves.  And from writing on the walls.  An old joke on Laugh In, when before Pigmeat Markham playing the judge, he tells the guilty party “30 dollars or 30 days.”  And the defendant replies “I’ll take the $30!”  As if he was given a choice of a prize.  I have been given tickets for 56 in a 55, and let go for riding over 100 in the same speed limited area.  Sometimes it has to do with no officer present, or as in the stretch between Escondido and Temecula on I-15, law enforcement every couple of miles.  Always with someone pulled over.   The worst case is outside Junction, Texas on I-10, the number 1 speed trap in the US of A.  Where I got pulled over and cited for 76 in a 70 zone, and the sheriff was back in his Bronco and across the freeway giving another before we could get back on the bike.  Revenue enhancement I call it, free money to the county, nothing about protecting and serving.  At least the Colorado Highway Patrol officer who nailed Rex at 70 in a 55 was honest, he only ticketed Rex, as he told me he couldn’t reload the radar gun in time to get me also.  So even within the rules, there are rules.  Just to see that we obey the rules.  And if a government official from OSHA can’t know them all, how can we?  Maybe we need a Mayberry approach to life, “obey all rules.”  Just so we know what they are.  But do we?

Today many advocate the 10 Commandments as how to run their lives.  Or live their lives.  More laws. Given by God to Moses, because his people were unruly-without rules.  10 of them, 4 of how to have a relationship with God, but 6 with man.  Does that mean it is easier to please God than man?  Does God judge easier?  Good rules to live by, and taken down from over the 600 God gave to the Jews earlier.  Talk about a homework assignment, “toddy class you will memorize the first 50 laws of Moses...” is that a rule?  But even ten was too much for any mortal man to comprehend, and the way the law is stated, you have to be guilty of it to be found doing it.  The law does not reward, it condemns.  And only works if you are not found guilty-notice I didn’t say innocent.  There is a difference.  But God is love, so he sent Jesus his son to do what the law could not do-save us from our sin, and from the law.

Ask any seasoned Christian about the law of Jesus and they may stop and wonder for a minute.  Didn’t Jesus come to fulfill the law?  Wasn’t he perfect and didn’t break any of them?  Including the over 600 original?  That alone makes him unique.  But when leaving his disciples, he leaves them with two commands, two laws.  One directive.  Love God with all your heart and mind.  Then love man the same.  Two laws that we argue over.  That we debate, and have trouble obeying.  If you think love is an emotion, you already failed, for love is a person.  God is love.  And in 1 Corinthians, the love chapter, it tells us that love is patient, etc.  Describing God, in case you ever meet him.  Same with the fruit of the spirit-it describes the character of God.  And to the end, Jesus showed unwavering, unbiased, without requirement love to Judas.  Knowing Judas was to turn him over to a death sentence, he gave him the best seat at the Last Supper.  Judas sat at his right hand, the seat of preference, just as Jesus sits at the right hand of God-the preferred seat in heaven.  He offered him chance after chance to repent, as we know Judas responded by denying Jesus, he was driven by the spirit of Satan, instead of the spirit of God.  The one sin that keeps you form heaven, rejecting the holy spirit, who tells you how you need Jesus, who reveals the truth of him to us, he denied.  Judas died for his own sins, Jesus died for ours.  And was willing to die for Judas’ also.  He loved Judas with no reservation, no bias, even knowing his heart to the end.  That’s love.  Agape, it’s called, a love only God can show for us.  If only we trusted him enough to believe his promise, “you shall do greater things...” and there is nothing greater than God’s love.  You cannot kill it, even nailed to a cross it never died, but rose again.  And today his spirit is still moving, telling a dying world that it needs Jesus.   Not demanding like the law, we love because he loved us first.  You cannot legislate love or morality.  Look around.  But you can choose Jesus, for love does not demand its own way.  Jesus is a choice, so is his love. 

Today we see law and order proclaimed from TV to patrol cars.  Hoping that by keeping the law, order follows.  Yet we see the opposite.  For God’s love also does one important thing the law cannot-it forgives.  Forgiveness through Jesus Christ, setting the example so we can forgive others.  And ourselves, often the hardest person to forgive.  No laws of law or in love.  Just Jesus.  And without him in your life, you don’t have love.  He still loves you, you just haven’t accepted it.  Would you accept his love today?  If you have fallen from it, turn back?  Then go show someone.  A postcard once told me, “don’t brag about what a great lover you are, show me.”  If you have to tell me you are a Christian, maybe you need to show it more.  Go forgive someone.  Show compassion to one who is unlovable.  Love your enemy as Jesus instructs.  Find and forgive the Judas in your life who betrayed you.  The gospel is that simple, so we can do it.  Free so we can afford it.  Barney’s advice came close, obey all rules.  Jesus made the rules simple-love.  Let him show you how today.  Start living being forgiven.  Trust God in obedience to his love, the love he showed us.  Love written on your heart, not on tablets of stone.  No writing on the walls, Jesus made it that personal.  Obey all rules.  Love Jesus, love your enemy, enjoy life.  Only in Christ will you know all the rules.  Love.  Let’s ride.

love with compassion,

Mike

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