Wednesday, August 5, 2009

God Has Given You Law.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, 30:20 loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the LORD swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob."

Of all the questions that are asked, I’ll bet that you have never asked yourself, What is Law? We don’t ask, because at some level we really don’t want to know, we have a feeling that if we knew what law is, that we would find that there was something else that we were not supposed to be doing. For these days, at every corner, it seems that there is someone telling us, You can’t do that! And this is one of the devil’s great deceptions. He is the one who has made certain that everyone knows about the "curse of the law". He has spent much time communicating the burden of obedience. He has spent much time spreading the importance of freedom. So it is that freedom is the one universal value in the land today, and law is the one universal curse. And this whole landscape is - an illusion, for it is not truly the way things are.

God never gave law as a curse. God gave law for our good, to protect and preserve his people, and to show them how the children of God are to live together in peace and harmony. When people break the law, they break the peace and harmony in the community and in their relationships with others. Breaking the law of God is sin, and it breaks the relationship that God would have with us in the blood of Jesus Christ. God’s commandments tell us about our relationship with God, and our relationship with our neighbor. They describe who we are as the people of God, and prescribe how it is what we should live, as those who have been redeemed by Jesus Christ. God gave them to us out of love, and for life.

It is not the law that brought sin into the world, we brought sin into the world, by rebelling against the will of God. We brought sin into the world, for all have sinned, we have rebelled against God, usually in the name of freedom, often deceived by the devil, we have sinned, and the wages of sin is death. But God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that who so ever believes on him should not perish, but have eternal life.

God has given us law - we know to honor and obey our parents, we know respect life as a gift of God, we know that we should only have pure thoughts, we know we should work to preserve and protect the property of others, we know that we should tell the truth, we know we should be content with what God has given us. - And we can see that all of these things are things which build community, and strengthen relationships between people. God has set these things before us for our good, and God has called us to choose life, to live by faith the new life he has set before us in Jesus Christ.

God has given us law, but life does not come of the law, life comes by grace through faith. For life to come by the law, the law must be kept perfectly, and we all sin. This is not to say that we shouldn’t try to keep the law, for keeping the law is what God has created us to do, and we do that by the grace of God. Jesus kept the law perfectly, and that’s why there is good news, that’s how there is forgiveness of sin, that’s how communities are mended, healed and restored, and that’s how we have peace with God, through Jesus Christ who has kept the law perfectly; and then gave up his life, as a sacrifice for our sins, that by his death and resurrection- we might be given forgiveness, salvation, and life everlasting. God gave us the law, for our good, but salvation comes by grace through faith in Christ Jesus.

In Christ we are forgiven. In Christ we are a new creation. In Christ, we are the people of God. God calls us today to live as the people of God. God calls us today to reject sin, and choose life. So it is that we can see law as a blessing, for it is the will of God for our lives, and for our good, in Jesus Christ.

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“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below; Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” - William Shakespeare