6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
A living relationship with the Living God; that is what brings life. And that is only possible if the barrier of sin has been dealt with properly. But even Jesus-followers try at times to be rule-keepers. Rule-keeping life is often comfortable. We can run our checklist each day and since we can add and subtract rules to our lists at will, we can always check all the boxes. If we don’t like a rule one day, scratch, off the list it goes. That way we can check the boxes. But what a life, always looking at the list, always concerned about checking the boxes. The new approach to eternity places the checklists in the trash. The one box that needed to be checked was checked by Jesus when he died in our place, check. He died so we don’t have to. He took our penalty even though it wasn’t fair. Our summary judgment was carried out on him. I was declared guilty; He served the prison sentence, community service and wore the identifying mark for the rest of His life. He lost his right to vote and gave me back mine. Now we can choose to live as if those things were never accomplished. We can show up at prison every day, shuffling along outside the front gate as if we needed to bare the punishment, but that would be unjust. The sentence has already been served. We are free to live in freedom. But this is so radical, so contrary to our guts. Satan has done a good job over the years convincing humanity that we are on our own, that we have to do this impossible job by ourselves. Or he has deceived us into thinking that the job just doesn’t exist, that there is no standard to which we must aspire. But there is something in each of us that screams when other people don’t meet our standards. We might not let it show on the outside, but it is there. That imprinted need for a standard shouts God’s existence. We have the privilege of living and sharing this new approach to life. Are you ready to throw the checklists away and live in freedom?
The Arnold Journey 