When “Jesus Rules!” turns into a list of Jesus rules

I grew up one of those kids that could buy into any hype. I’m still that way, actually. Don’t even come near me with your MonaVie, Pampered Chef, or Thirty-One sales pitch. I’ve bought into all of that, only to fizzle out and be left with the rules of how to keep the pyramid growing. And that’s a little how my spiritual life was as an impressionable teen.

As soon as I turned twelve and could count myself an official member of the church youth group I wanted to be at every event. Whether it was a party or a church service, I was there. Jesus freak and jean skirts. DC Talk and Carman. Loud and proud. Count me in. And then when I was 15 I went on my first out of town church trip to a national youth conference. There were over 10,000 like-minded young people in attendance and I was in awe. In awe of the common Jesus-thread that ran among us. In awe of the way I was able to walk through throngs of young people and feel like we were one in our love for God. In awe of the worship that poured out of these 10,000 plus souls packed in to that arena.

On our first day in Little Rock, walking from our hotel to the arena, I was admiring two girls walking ahead of us. Dressed to the nines. Hair curled to perfection. Teeth gleaming as they laughed. I didn’t know them but I envied them. They were beautiful. And as we walked, one of the girls in my group, one that was in a position of leadership over us, began dissecting all of the ways these girls I was admiring were wrong. Anything she could see—one girl’s skirt was too short, the other’s was too tight, they both had on too much makeup, and the list went on of all the “rules” these girls were breaking. Jesus rules. How had I missed this? I knew there were things we did and didn’t do as Christians, but I was now seeing that if I ever went against the grain, there were people waiting by the sidelines to tear me down. It wasn’t long after returning from this trip that my awe of worship turned into a fear of judgement.

Everything I once saw as Biblical principles to follow had, in my mind, become a list of rules to be enforced and I started to push back. I spent the next several years pushing against the church flow. I wanted answers to my questions of why we did this and didn’t do that. And it was pretty rare that a question was met with a scriptural answer to back it up. I’m not saying scripture wasn’t there to reinforce the rule in some way, but the explanations given were more often than not based on man’s instruction rather than God’s. The focus seemed to be on the rule, not the guiding principle behind it. Instead of getting answers, I heard more rules, experienced more judgement, and, ultimately, fostered more resentment. My “Jesus Rules!” attitude changed drastically when I saw all the Jesus rules I had to follow in order to somehow earn my place in the Kingdom.

It took a long time to reconcile my genuine love for God with the Biblical principles (they are no longer “rules” for me) He has given us for living this life. It took years to be able to separate the people that judged me from the people that loved me. And it is still an ongoing challenge not to care what the “judgers” are saying. But the fact of the matter is that God’s word does have principles for us to live by as Christians. He does ask certain things of us. But they aren’t “rules” sent down by an angry God waiting for us to stumble and fall so that someone else can laugh and judge. All that He asks of us starts and ends with Love.

It’s been 16 years since that moment of discovering the righteous judgement around me. Lots of soul-searching and God-grasping has happened to bring me back to a place of “Jesus Rules!” and, in a twisted turn of events, I am now in a position of leadership in our church. Erick and I have led the youth group for seven years and if there is one thing we have fought for our young people to grasp is that God never intended us to be so hung up on the law that we fail to see the love. It’s not ever our place to extend judgment to anyone. For anything. Period. If I feel sure about the “right and wrong” of something, then it is my responsibility to live out that truth for me. But I have to trust that the person standing beside me is in the midst of their own searching and is living out their truth the best they know how. Even when—especially when—their truth looks different than mine. Isn’t that what we are all doing? Just the best we know how?

Why not put the judgement aside and practice the art of truly loving your neighbour? No agenda. No sales pitch. No Jesus rules. Only Jesus love.