Law or Principles

I observe that when people try to make a covenant with God based on externals the result is often rule based. We think we know what God wants for our life, we want to align our lives to look like godly people so we set up rules so that the people in our group will behave and look like what we believe to be correct. These rules are oriented necessarily to dictate outward activities and relationships because rules simply can't be applied by humans to the heart. How could you arraign someone in court for not following a rule in their heart? Since it is impossible for any human to see into another person's heart accurately no one would be able to make an accurate determination about such a matter. Therefore, man-made rules always apply to externals.

God's way of operating is based on covenant relationship. (see FFI for excellent resources on understanding covenant vs. contracts) Although humans most always try to turn covenant arrangements into rule-based contracts, true covenant relationships are based on the heart. God has promised to exchange our hearts of stone for a heart of flesh. This new heart with God's “laws” written into its DNA is flexible and adaptable, unlike rule-based formula-oriented relationships.

The major problem with ruling the external with the focus on laws is that life and times change but rules are much slower to follow. What seems to work for current circumstances does not translate well to other people or to future generations. The result is a whole lot of rules and laws that quickly become obsolete and even ludicrous. Because of the obvious irrelevance of so many rules to practical life combined with the reluctance of the rule-makers to remove the old laws, most people adapt by learning to ignore some rules while carefully following others. This is usually based on the arbitrary enforcement of selected rules by whatever enforcers are nearby to do so.

This principle is at work both in secular society and religious communities. The proliferation of rules is like a plague that is constantly increasing the confusion and complexity of our lives. It is the essence of what is known as tradition. This increasing obsession produces more and more stress which slowly erodes our emotional strength and debilitates healthy relationships. Strict attention and focus on rules hardens the heart while professing to produce goodness and correctness in people however those are defined by the particular group or person in charge.

This strategy is at the heart of the Babylon system. And it is important to understand that it is not God's plan or method. And although God has stooped to meet us in our ignorance and set up systems of rules for us to observe because of our strong insistence toward this orientation, His original and perfect plan is based on heart relationships and heart motivation. His rules and laws are descriptive in nature instead of proscriptive. Man's laws are almost always proscriptive.

What is the difference? Proscriptive laws involve arbitrary commands requiring an enforcer and arbitrary punishments for infractions. The unholy trinity described at length in other places on this site (see labels) uses this system as its modus operandi. Rules, in fact, become a sort of deity in and of themselves. It is assumed that every problem can and must be solved by creating another law. (If you have any doubt about this, just casually observe how congress operates over a period of time.)

Once rules have been formulated based on some select group or person's opinion of what everyone else must do to be “right”, then some kind of punishment must be created to frighten everyone enough to obey the rules. The punishment often has no relationship to the law except its arbitrary imposition and attachment to that law. It usually has very little to do with natural cause and effect. In our society the two most common punishments that have condensed over time are fines and imprisonment. It matters very little what the law was that was broken. The punishment is almost always the same. Only the amount or length of the punishment may vary.

Now that the punishment has been formulated for the arbitrary rule, it is passed on to an ever-expanding group of enforcers to impose the punishments. This is usually deeply immersed in the “economics” leg of the unholy trinity. The system of law enforcement is almost exclusively a means of enrichment of the elite groups of “insiders” of society, those involved in making more laws, controlling most of the economics or acting as the enforcers. This encourages segregation of society into class systems between those who can get inside the privileged groups and those who are exploited outside the groups. There are all kinds of groups that are usually overlapping, but the grouping is very apparent most of the time.

This whole system of external rule-based living is inherently designed to harden hearts and make us cynical and callous. The “Babylonian” system designed and implemented by the greatest enemy of our souls is intent on destroying the image of God implanted in our hearts. It purports to have a better alternative to God's relational family-relationship system because it focuses on external performance and results more than God's system seems to. It teaches that the externals are the most important thing about us and that our value is based primarily on our ability to exalt ourselves at the expense of others.

Descriptive law is a completely different order of thinking and living. Descriptive law is not so much law as we are used to thinking of the word but is simply descriptive of the underlying principles of reality as it really is. In fact, God's laws, if understood correctly, are not really laws as impositions but are simply explanations of the great principles of cause and effect inherent in creation and the universe. These have been condensed into written descriptions in the imperfect and incomplete language of men adapted enough to get us to begin to understand how things work outside our limited understanding. The “laws” of God are like the laws of nature, which in fact are the laws of God. But unlike human arbitrary laws, God's laws do not require the system of arbitrary enforcement and oppressive enforcers to impose irrelevant punishments. God's laws are completely natural and His guidance (received through the heart) is designed to align us correctly with these principles so that we do not run crosswise to them and suffer the natural consequences of doing so.

God created the universe with immense power built into the various aspects and forces. These “natural” powers must stay in the synchronization and balance that was designed for them so that they accomplish what they were intended to do. As long as all the elements and intelligent entities stay in harmony with each other as originally designed they act as a blessing to each other and glorify the amazing skill and love of the Designer. But as soon as choices are made to violate the inherent principles in place, the incredible forces built into the system are in danger of breaking out of their boundaries and causing harm and unintended consequences that God never intended.

For instance, take the “law” of gravity. Gravity is not an arbitrary rule with arbitrary punishments for violators and with enforcers standing ready to impose the punishment. It is not at all like man's system of rules. It you violate the “principle” of gravity you unleash power inherent in gravity that results in consequences that are directly related and proportional to the violation incurred. We do not usually accuse God of arbitrarily punishing someone for violating the law of gravity, we are usually observant and open-minded enough to admit that the resultant pain and problems were directly the responsibility of the “violator”. We understand, usually, that if we stay in harmony and live within the constraints of this principle we can actually use it for our advantage and blessing. The inherent and immense power in this principle or law is woven into nearly everything we do. We know how to apply other principles that at times may supersede the normal constraints of gravity, but we understand our relationship to this law as simply a description of reality, of how things are in the world we are placed in.

When we apply this concept to all the rest of God's “laws” and begin to view them in the light of natural principles, that they are simply descriptions of reality that describe the boundaries of dynamic forces kept in balance, we will begin to unmask many of the lies about God as being an over-powering enforcer of capricious arbitrary edicts looking for opportunities to punish us and condemn our hearts.

In reality, God is passionate about restoring the balance of power in the universe to the model He first created. This model is based solidly on interconnected hearts in perfect harmony and joy with each other, drawing abundant life from the Creator and blessing everyone around them with life. This is our destiny and design. This is the identity built into to us called the image of God. When we realize the blessing and identity implanted within us that God longs to grow in our hearts we will re-connect with the real Source of life and begin to flourish and thrive within the natural constraints of all the mighty forces of nature and relationships.

Some people become alarmed at this perspective because it sounds in many ways like New Age thinking. New Age does teach a lot about inherent forces in the universe and living in harmony with natural principles. Like all false systems of thought, New Age has a great deal more truth in their understandings than most Christians are willing to accept. But the higher percentage of truth a belief contains the more deceptive potential it carries to smuggle in the small but deadly errors. In this case, the main embedded error that is fatal in this system of belief is the original lie given to Eve that we can be our own god, that God is not a separate entity from us but is our collective consciousness. This is largely reinforced in their minds because of the horrific lies about God that Christians still teach and believe in today.

But we must be very careful not to discredit the true part of something simply because it has been coupled with something erroneous. This is a very strong tendency among many but prevents us from embracing many concepts that are actually based in true reality. Every one of us is incomplete in our knowledge of truth and we all harbor lies that make us potential agents of deception ourselves. I have observed that many people associated with New Age are far more open-minded about learning new things than most other “religious” people. The prejudice against God that I see in most people who embrace New Age thinking is almost always based on terrible lies and abuse heaped on them by others claiming to represent God while acting more like demons. In response to this abuse, these people find the harmony and common sense that is more prevalent in New Age circles a refreshing breath of fresh air compared to the oppression and nonsense perpetrated by “religious” abusers.

The laws of nature are the laws of God because God created nature. This applies to all the universe. But sin has disrupted the balance of powers originally set up by the Creator and we now see some of the natural results and consequences everywhere we look. I personally believe that even some of the chaos we observe far out in space may possibly be continuing catastrophic results of sin on the part of some of the angels who fell so long ago. There are strong hints to this effect in the book of Jude and elsewhere in the Bible.

Sin is, in its essence, a crossing or violation of natural principles of harmony with the powers set up in original balance. The Bible defines sin as “transgression of the law”. “Trans” means to go crosswise to and “gress” involves movement (such as pro-gress or re-gress). When the law is understood as descriptive of natural principles with inherent built-in power, then to go crosswise to these natural principles will result in suffering the consequences of the power released in the wrong way. Sin disconnects us from not only from our only source for continued life but from the only reliable guidance system that will keep us aligned in harmony with all the forces surrounding us.

We are so ignorant on this subject that we are pitiful. We have tried to reduce all these concepts into religious talk and meaningless phrases strung together like so many mantras. We assume that if we can find the right religious recipe then we can maneuver our way into escaping pain and into favor with God.

But we must realize that God is already on our side, He is not the one against us. He is passionately doing everything imaginable to attract us to Himself and allow Him to bring us back into healthy alignment with the rest of creation so we can thrive and reconnect with all of the channels of life He created for us. This is the plan of salvation, to restore us to our proper place and function in the life-giving circuit of power. If we insist on remaining mis-configured and continue to trust other sources for guidance and life in place of trusting Him, we violate and break open the natural boundaries of intense but largely unknown forces in place all around us and unleash those forces into destructive results they were never intended to accomplish. God's incredible grace is the only thing currently protecting us from the disastrous affects of those forces even now. He is waiting and working within this atmosphere of grace to draw every person who is willing back into the protection of harmony with Him and His principles.

The time is soon coming when the level of sin and its effects on these forces will result in terrifying consequences that are inevitable when the grace of God is pushed firmly out of the way. Those who still cling to their barbaric lies about God will insist that God is a punisher and executor. They firmly believe that God operates His government like men do and therefore He will enforce His laws with stern punishments just like evil-hearted men do. The terrible thing is that this is largely the view and belief of most Christians right now. These lies about God become the filter through which everything is viewed and interpreted. Because this false picture of God is cherished so strongly, they will in fact experience the very results of the false ideas they impose on God.

Only those who are willing to radically be transformed into a completely new reality and perceive God from His perspective will be synchronized enough to survive the effects of nature's forces out of control because of sin. And more important, they will be fitted in heaven during the millenium to come into perfect harmony with God so they can not only look on His face in the final day of reckoning but will, amazingly, become part of His very body. They will participate in the greatest exposé of God ever to take place in all of time.

Sinners in Zion are terrified; Trembling has seized the godless. "Who among us can live with the consuming fire? Who among us can live with continual burning?" He who walks righteously and speaks with sincerity, He who rejects unjust gain And shakes his hands so that they hold no bribe; He who stops his ears from hearing about bloodshed And shuts his eyes from looking upon evil; (Isaiah 33:14-15 NAS95)