Romans 7:6,8,24-25; Jonah 2
Romans 7 talks all about the law and what it means to the follower of Jesus. I’m going to be talking about my personal testimony and how it relates to Romans 7. The law existed to establish “fences” of sorts for the Jewish people. Boundaries by which they were to live, and by staying within those boundaries they could remain close to God. My early life parallels that way of thinking. My parents gave me strict rules to live by and I even tried to establish my own rules (or fences) to live by. But as the saying goes… Rules are meant to be broken. In a way, the law produced more sin in the Israelites, because it tempted them toward the breaking of the law (Rm. 7:8). Rules have a way of tempting us toward rebellion. If there’s a fences standing in your way the temptation is to climb it to get to the other side. And that’s what I did given the first opportunity. Turns out that fences are not a great way to keep people close to God.
But there is another way to keep people close. Dig a well. The kind of well that produces living water! The kind of well that keeps you coming back time and time again, no matter how far you stray.
The challenge will be to call people into a life of “well digging” and stop trying to build all those fences. In fact, we need to start knocking those fences down so that no matter where we stray, we always have a clear path right back to the well.