Dead Religion is Dead Weight

Have you ever felt overburdened by other people’s expectations and demands? Have you ever felt crushed by demands and standards you could not keep?

Religious requirements of the law can be overwhelming and can threaten to burden us and even crush us under it’s weight.

We cannot keep up with the demands and the requirements of the law. We simply fall short.

This was the case in the Book of Acts when the Jerusalem Council addressed the requirements the religious leaders were placing on the early Gentile converts to Christianity. They were requiring the Gentiles to keep certain fasts and to be circumcised.

Peter addressed the issues of circumcision and law keeping, saying, “Why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” (Acts 15:10-11, ESV).

Jesus has saved us through the free gift of his grace. We are not saved through shouldering the heavy burden of the law.

We are no longer yoked as slaves to the law. We are released from the heavy and the crushing burden of impossible works based righteousness. We are free from the intolerable weight of the impossible merit-based self-righteousness and self-salvation.

The law presents us with an unbearable load—a heavy yoke. Jesus desires to give us a lighter load—an easier yoke. We are “saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus”, not by our works.

As Jesus himself said in Matthew’s Gospel account, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:28, NIV).

May we put away the dead weight of dead religion and law and put on the lighter load of the grace filled yoke of Christ.

In Christ alone, Robbie

A Collect For The Twentieth Sunday after Trinity (Proper 24): “Set us free, loving Father, from the bondage of our sins, and in your goodness and mercy give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.” (Book of Common Prayer, 2019).

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