Blessing – The Rule of Law: Government of the Home (6)

Blessing

The Rule of Law: Government of the Home (6)

A home grounded in God’s Law becomes a blessing to its community.

“Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this nation is a wise and understanding people.’” Deuteronomy 4:6

Where families are nurtured on the Law of God they grow in holiness and good works, bearing the fruit of the Spirit both in their homes and beyond, in all their personal spheres of influence.

Obedience to the Law of God, as we have seen, brings the blessing and presence of God into the midst of His people, beginning in their homes. This encounter with God’s glory, and the prospect of growing in that glory, are the great hope of the believer (Rom. 5:1, 2). So powerful and so transforming is this hope (2 Cor. 3:12-18), that it cannot help but come to light in various ways in a believer’s life. In good works, by wisdom, in confidence and boldness for the truth, with words of comfort and edification, and in many other ways, believers grounded in the Law of God and living for the hope of glory will impact their neighbors as nothing else in their lives can.

And this impact may take the form of blessing to both the saved and the lost alike, as the presence of God’s Spirit in us touches others with the living reality of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are blessed of God in order to be a blessing to others, some of whom may be so powerfully affected by that blessing as to inquire for a reason for the hope that is within us (1 Pet. 3:15).

When our good works, expressed as the practice of God’s Law, shine before others, they themselves may join with us in lives that bring glory to God. Here is all the more reason why God intends the households of His people to be firmly grounded in learning and obeying His Law.

For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the life of faith, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.ailbe.org and click on our Bookstore, then Church Issues.

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore, editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.