Tradition, Tradition, Tradition

Mark 7:6-8 “You are all hypocrites. Isaiah was right when he wrote these words from God about you: ‘These people honour me with their words, but I am not really important to them. Their worship of me is worthless. The things they teach are only human rules.’ You have stopped following God’s commands, preferring instead the man-made rules you got from others.”

Have you ever thought about the things that you do to try to please God? How many of them come from Him, and how many of them have been handed down to you as things you should really do if you want to make God happy? Have you ever wondered?

I’ll be honest – religious traditions leave me cold. I’m sorry if that offends some people, but … kneel now, stand up again, sit down, do this, do that … none of those things are, in and of themselves, bad, but when we start believing that those things somehow make God happy, or appease Him, or buy us a ticket to heaven, then we’ve completely missed the point.

Time and time again you see Jesus clashing with the religious leaders of His day on this very thing. Those leaders noticed, for example, that Jesus’ disciples were eating food without going through the traditional religious cleansing rituals.

They quizzed Him on this (as you can imagine) and this is what He said to them:

Mark 7:6-8 “You are all hypocrites. Isaiah was right when he wrote these words from God about you: ‘These people honour me with their words, but I am not really important to them. Their worship of me is worthless. The things they teach are only human rules.’ You have stopped following God’s commands, preferring instead the man-made rules you got from others.”

It turns out that all too often, things that we’ve been told we should do in order to please God are nothing more than man-made rules. And instead of drawing us closer to Him, all too often they lead us further and further away from the truth of the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

Look, there’s nothing wrong with traditions per se, but let’s not get the idea that somehow they’re the way to God.

There’s only one way. Jesus

That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.

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