Our life with God can’t be done by checklist.
Although there are many aspects to life which require careful attention to outward detail — baking a cake, flying a plane, balancing a bank account — our life with God doesn’t work like that. Though it’s true that there are specific commandments and directions in the Scripture which we are called to obey (check out Exodus 20, for example), they can’t get to the heart of what it means to follow God.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day thought they had such a checklist. It rounded out to about 613 commandments that they, and their ancestors, had identified as essential to following God. And so, when it appeared as if Jesus’ disciples were breaking some of the 613 (detailed interpretations of how to apply specific commandments, such as keeping the Sabbath), they thought that Jesus and His people were way off base. He quoted the Scripture from Isaiah: this people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me (Matthew 15:7). Jesus identified the heart of the matter of life with God: the condition of the heart.
So today, rather than running down a checklist of “to-dos”, whether for work, or home, do a check of your heart. See what it is that has been flowing from it towards others or towards God. Does it resemble the list in Matthew 15:19, or does it resemble the list in Galatians 5:22-23?
Allow Jesus to get to the heart of life with Him, namely your heart.
