Beware The Rule Pushers

"Beware the yeast of the Pharasees-their hypocrisy." I titled this "Beware the Rule Pushers" because Jesus is calling attention to the fact that though the Pharasees push many many rules and regulations about religion onto people, they themselves do not keep them. Their hypocrisy is that they "act" like the rules and regs are paramount, but they do not live that way. Actually it would be impossible to live that way. The warning of Jesus is that trying to live that way is like adding an ingredient to life that will affect everything else about it (like yeast affect dough). He is calling for us to stay focused on the fact that the way to approach God is by beginning and continuing a relationship with God. And once we are building that personal relationship with God (through prayer, bible reading, doing what we learn, listening to that still small counsel of God within us) we continue to focus on the relationship with God. What happens far too often is that people calcify their experiences with God and turn them into their own personal relgion (so as not to need to continue dealing with God personally). The rest of what Jesus says in Luke 12 is in context of his warning. He celebrates the joy of a deep and abiding relationship of love with God and warns about the consequences of not building that relationship. His warning is always about substituting anything for the relationship we can have with God. It's harder than following or creating a relgion, but so much more satisfying-ultimately and forever.