Following Rules

All our lives we seem to follow rules. When we are children, we follow the rules of our particular home or suffer consequences. In school, we follow rules or we suffer consequences. In the job, we follow rules. We have been programed that way over and over through out life. It seems logical then that there are rules when we interact with God. It seems that what God really wants is our hearts. Out of the heart are the issues of life. But God doesn't want compliance with rules. Yes, he gave us the ten commandments, and the old testament tells us it was our school master to show us we would fail in keeping the rules. When we fail in one point, we are guilty of all. That's where Grace comes in to play. Grace covers our disobeying the rules. Still we try to make rules with Grace, it's what we have done our whole life. Unconditional love, undeserved Grace throws the rules out the window. It is a hard concept to understand. There are no rules to obey to obtain Grace. God wants to change us from  the heart out. He gives Grace. As he changes the heart we want to please him, not for rules sake, but for Christ. Just as we are, we come to God, we cannot make ourselves good enough to obtain Grace. All have sinned, all have fallen short. But Grace covers us and God sees us perfect, because of Grace, not because we kept the rules. He loves us unconditionally, not because we were some how able to keep a book of rules, but because he is God and he designed a plan of redemption for us, Grace. Yet look at us, over and over we still want a rule book to follow, we still want to make ourselves good enough to be his child. That's not the way it works with Grace. God changes us from within. He changes us, not we ourselves. Create in me a clean heart, O God and renew a right spirit within me. Grace, think about how we would have loved to live in a home with unconditional love growing up, instead of control. Would we have not loved those parents who loved us unconditionally? To feel accepted in all parts of life. Is not that what we want, to be accepted? Is that not what we have always wanted to be loved in this way. We try to find it every where except through God's Grace.  Sometimes we find a good relationship, where family, spouses, a true friend,  loving us just as we are. That's Grace, loving us just as we are. God bless, LVZ.