Can an old dog learn new tricks, and about legalism?

March 4

Isn’t it cool how God uses so many different things to get our attention?  I read from “A Year with God” daily, and was struck by these words written originally by Dallas Willard today: “we are all somebody’s disciples.” Later in the reading, I was challenged to consider who/what were the central influences in my life, and finally who is learning from me and what am I teaching them.  This all follows my reading of the book Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint by Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran pastor.

Two passages of Scripture also caught my attention in my continued reading of I Thessalonians in by old KJV and my new Message translations: “One final word friends.  We ask you – urge you is more like it-that you keep on doing what we told you to do to please God, not in dogged religious plod, but in a living, spirited dance.”  I Thess. 4:1 Message  and “Since we’re creatures of the day, let’s act like it.  Walk out into the daylight sober, dressed up in faith, love and the hope of salvation.”  I Thess 5:8  The Message

Lastly a friend Dan Lyle posted this quote on facebook this morning “legalistic religion focuses on what I do for God, genuine worship focuses on what God has done for me." - Pastor Lynn

Now, to put it all together.  The three greatest influences in my life as a young person were my mother, my older sister and my church.  I learned from them that young ladies do not use coarse language (you can guess who taught me that, and I still hear her voice in my head), Jesus loves me, and you can tell if a person is a believer by the style clothes they wear and how they use their time: they don’t wear shorts in public, dance, smoke, drink, go to the movies or go with people who do.

That sounds pretty judgmental by a lot of standards today, but I was young, a new believer and searching for godly leadership in my life, and I learned it all well.  As I matured in Christ, I came to question some of those things, but all of that was pretty well rooted, whether I liked it or not.  Eventually I came to understand why I was taught some of those things; my teachers were fearful of how we might be influenced by the world, becoming worldly rather than godly. So I learned to fear God, and not in a good way.  What a mess!

When you really read the Bible, especially the New Testament, you can’t miss it.  God wants us to respond to His love by loving others, not by running around judging them.  He wants us to live a life of joy, of peace, of hope. 

Now to the book by Nadia Bolz-Weber, a tattooed (and we know what that could mean) and foul-mouthed, at least in her writing, pastor.  You talk about conundrums.  How can someone love God and use the kind of language that would have gotten me a date with a bar of Ivory Soap?  I have come to learn that tattoos are not a mark of Satan, too many men in my family have them, and some of the women.  But that stuff that was planted in there a long time ago rose again to serve unbidden as a filter. 

The point of the book, once I waded through it all, was the same thing as the gospel of John, or the rest of the New Testament – love God and love others, and remember what God has done for me. 

I guess it all boils down to an old dog learning new tricks and trying really hard not to let the old tricks spoil the new ones.