We could sum up a key point Paul has been making so far in his letter to the Roman church in this way: we should not live by rules but by relationship; a relationship with God. Does this mean then that the law is irrelevant and can be discarded? No, not at all. We simply need to understand the role of the law; the role that the law was always intended to perform. The law was given to tell us when we go off track. It is just like those ‘rumble strips’ on the side of the road that rumble the car when it starts to veer off the road. Imagine driving on the rumble strips the whole way to your destination thinking, “This isn’t a very good road!” Well, the rumble strips are not meant to be the road, they are there to mark the side of the road. They are not there for us to drive on, they are there to point to where we should be driving. It is the same with the law. We don’t drive on the law, the law isn’t the road. The law is there to point to where the road is and to let us know when we veer off the road. We shouldn’t be focusing on the rumble strips but on the road. When Christians become law focused, they become about as pleasant to other people as driving on a rumble strip. The road we should travel on is a road of relationship with God. Start talking to God all the time. God is talking to you all the time by his Spirit within you. Listen to what he is saying.
Walk with God every day and you will go forwards.
Read Romans 7:7-13
