The Rule of God’s Law: First Things (16)

Click here to watch a brief video introducing this week’s study. This week’s video is the same as for lesson 2.

“Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the LORD your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. Therefore hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the LORD God of your fathers has promised you – ‘a land flowing with milk and honey.’” Deuteronomy 6.1-3

The primary function of the heart, as the chief component of the soul, is to focus and tune our desires. What we desire defines how we think, what we value, and how we will live. If our desires are as they should be, rightly focused and tuned according to God’s purposes and will, then we can be sure that we will abide within His favor and blessings, and He will fill our lives with the abundance of Jesus Christ (Jn. 10.10).

But sin perverts the desires of our hearts, turning us away from love for God and neighbor toward a pernicious self-love that is contrary to everything good and just. Because we are all sinners, all human beings are naturally inclined to desire the opposite of what God intends, as Paul explains in Romans 3. The Law of God was given as a corrective for our sinful desires, to teach us instead what we ought to desire if we would know full and abundant life.

Essentially, the Law teaches us to desire what God has promised. It uses a variety of terms to keep this before our eyes: that which is “good,” and which, therefore, reflects God’s original intention for all creation (cf. Gen. 1.31); “that it may be well” with us, and that we may “multiply greatly” (again, recalling God’s original purpose for people). The Law points to the promises God made to Abraham – to bless His people and to make them a blessing to the world (Gen. 12.1-3). These blessings are the sum and substance of what it means truly to live (Lev. 18.1-5), and they are available only to those who, earnestly desiring the promises of God, are also willing to pursue the path of holiness which leads to them (Lev. 19.2; 20.26: Deut. 23.14; etc.).

The place to begin in setting our hearts on the Law of God is thus to turn away from our natural, sinful inclinations and desires, and to look to God, speaking in His Word, to reveal His precious and very great promises to us; for it is by these promises that we are able to transcend the limits and miseries of our sinful condition and participate in the very purpose and nature of God Himself (2 Pet. 1.4). Desiring God and His promises above our sinful tendencies and inclinations, we will resort to the Law of God as marking the path that Jesus walked, and that can lead us as well (1 Jn. 2.1-6).

By reading and meditating on the Law of God, we are encouraged to desire the promised blessings of God as the defining outlook and aspiration of our hearts (cf. Deut. 28.1-14). Obedience to God and His Law begins in our hearts, as we, in the power of God’s Spirit, discipline our affections to resist and reform all desires which are not in line with God’s revealed purposes, pleasure, and plan.

Next steps –Transformation: As you pray through the Ten Commandments, ask the Lord to give you a vision of how your life would be different if you delighted more fully in each Commandment. Then ask Him for one step you can take that day toward greater transformation in Him.

T. M. Moore

The Law of God is the soil which, fertilized by the rest of God’s Word and watered by His Spirit, brings forth the fruit of the Christian life. If you’d like to understand this process better, and how to make best use of the Law in your walk with and work for the Lord, order the book, The Ground for Christian Ethics, from our online store.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.