shadows of Him

why do Christians think that the Law still applies to them?

i was wondering about this, when this table occurred to me:

type of Law	does the Law require obedience to this?	does the Spirit encourage similar behavior?
ceremonial	yes	no
civil	yes	no
moral	yes	yes

...the reason why Christians get confused is because the Spirit and the New Nature encourage and inspire Christians to act in a way that is quite similar to the moral law.  deep inside, they know that they want to love & care for people and not to hate & murder them.

when they read of this behavior in the moral law, they think they should obey the moral law.  and thus begins the confusion with all of the law...thus begins confusion about 'keeping the sabbath' and 'tithing' and many other practices.

but the law is simply not necessary for Christians.  Christians have the Spirit and the New Nature; they don't need the law; the law was for people who had neither the Spirit nor the New Nature.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
so, what is the problem with the law?  actually, there is no problem.  the law is perfect and holy and good; it proceeded from God and serves His purpose.  the law is actually fantastic!!!...because it leads people to Christ.  the law is weak and powerless to recreate a person, to make a person want to act certain ways; only the Spirit and the Rebirth does that.

so, what is the problem with following the law?  ahh, now there's the problem.  if Christians attempt to follow the law, they are not using the law as intended.  the law is intended to force you to give up, to give up on yourself and your own power to change yourself...and to guide you to Christ, to guide you to the Spirit and the Rebirth that will provide the power.  when a Christian focuses on the law, they have given up focusing on Christ, the Spirit and the Rebirth - and giving them up can only end in bitter failure.

ever since Adam and Eve ate of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil", we have been focused on precisely that knowledge.  having the knowledge of it causes us to focus on good and evil, the same way that having ears causes us to focus on sound and having eyes causes us to focus on light.  the knowledge of good and evil is a sensory organ.

but what matters is the "tree of life".  "good" is only a shadow of life, as "evil" is only a shadow of death.  focusing on "good and evil" causes us to get our mind off of life.  and who is Life???  Jesus Christ.  so, to sum it all up:

the law causes us to put our focus on the law, thus taking our focus away from Jesus Christ. the law exchanges Life for a shadow of Life, a shadow that was meant to simply indicate that the Life was there.

imagine someone very good looking was standing outside in the sun with you; you are both casting long shadows.

• at first, there is a barrier between you, a wall that you can't see over.  all you can see at this point is the person's shadow; you admire the shadow, you comment on how lovely the shadow is, you count yourself lucky for being allowed to see the shadow, you want to show the shadow to other people.
• but, you actually become fixated on the shadow; you wonder if you're seeing the shadow correctly; you try to make your own shadow match the shadow you love so much; you become fixated on both your shadows; you try and try, but you find that you just can't make your shadow conform to the other shadow; to fix the problem, you start making up little rules that will help you keep your shadow in what you deem to be the right position.
• then, the barrier comes down and you can finally see the good looking person, the one casting the shadow you have loved for so long.  you can react in many different ways...
• you might continue looking at the shadow, because you loved it for so long, and you built so much of your life around it.
• you might continue looking at the shadow because you are simply afraid to look that the good looking person.  you think: that person is so good looking, and i am so ugly...how could i ever look them in the eye?  how could i ever really take in how beautiful they are?  ...i should not look.
• or, you might look at the person and look and keep looking.  you might say: this is what i wanted to see this whole time; i don't want to look at either of our shadows anymore...i only want to look at Him.

...this is the way it is, you can either focus on shadows or on Him.  you don't have the capacity to intensely look at both at the same time.  you might be able to look at the shadows and see Him out of the corner of your eye, in your peripheral vision.  but would you not rather look at Him and see the shadows out of the corner of your eye, in your peripheral vision?  this is a choice that you can make; choose Life.