Jesus or Religious People

As I read Luke 5 today, I was struck by the way that the religious people of the day were the ones who provided the biggest challenge to Jesus. Now this is not a new insight. However, it caused a long held fear to resurface, what am I doing that is making the work and ministry of Christ more challenging for him. Later in Luke 5 were are reminded of the often found paradox, John fasted and the religious people wondered why, Jesus and the disciples feasted and the religious people wondered why. In fact in both cases the people did more than wonder, some got angry and condemned. When we begin to get into religious nit-picking, we manage to attack all sides of an issue, leaving no acceptable way. Not once to you find Jesus engaged in religious nit-picking, not once do you find Jesus using many words to debate the religious people. Jesus simply uses his actions. The nit-picking leads to death by rules and human-driven boundaries, Jesus leads to life and God-given freedom. May we choose freedom.