The Law of Liberty (19)

Readers will gain a better perspective on the main teaching of this series by reading The Ground for Christian Ethics, by T. M. Go to www.MyParuchia.com, click Publications, then click Waxed Tablet, and scroll down until you see this little volume.

When I think on my ways, I turn my feet to your testimonies; I hasten and do not delay to keep your commandments. Psalm 119:57, 58

Celtic Christians worked hard at building communities dedicated to the pursuit of holiness. Not just monks and other clergy, but lay men and women from all walks of life joined in the effort to grow out of all sinful practices into the liberty and love of God’s Law. Whenever a practice “contrary” to God’s Law was discovered, and the one guilty was found to be struggling to overcome it, he and a friend would come to the pastor for help. The pastor would listen with a loving ear, then prescribe a raft of exercises “contrary” to the “contrary” behavior, in order to get the offending party back on the right track with the Lord.

This is the process of “penance,” which, for Celtic Christians, was a spiritual discipline designed to retrain errant practices so as to help a guilty person put aside the old man and be renewed in Jesus Christ. To be sure, some of this went to what we would consider extremes. But, for the most part, the idea was that one had to embrace the practices of the Lord in order to overcome those practices that were harmful to vital spiritual life.

No one was likely to present himself for penance who did not realize, first, that the thing he was doing was beyond his power to repair. Nor would he come for help until, in his mind, heart, and conscience he had become convinced he was in the wrong. Thus, by learning the Law of God–and by singing Psalm 119 as frequently as they did–Celtic Christians were acutely sensitive to when sinful practices might be appearing among them. And they loved one another enough to confront where necessary and help where they were able.

“Contraries are by contraries cured.” That’s the way the old Celtic penitential manuals used to summarize the work of penance. That’s pretty much what we see reflected in our verse for the day–reflecting on our daily practices in the light of God’s Law, we work continuously to keep our feet in the path of righteousness, following where Jesus walked, that we might be seen to be His disciples, indeed (1 John 2:1-6).

Daily meditation in the Law of God helps us along the path of holiness, righteousness, and goodness (Rom. 7:12). Order your copy of The Law of God, a compilation of the Mosaic Law for contemporary believers, by going to www.MyParuchia.com, point your browser to “Publications,” then click on the drop-down option, “Waxed Tablet Publications.”

–

In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore.

T.M. Moore is 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.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.

The Law of Liberty (18)

Readers will gain a better perspective on the main teaching of this series by reading The Ground for Christian Ethics, by T. M. Go to www.MyParuchia.com, click Publications, then click Waxed Tablet, and scroll down until you see this little volume.

Make your face to shine upon your servant, and teach me your statutes. Psalm 119:135

In the human soul, the conscience functions as the keeper of priorities, values, and default choices. In that respect it is nearly equal to the will. Except when people are reacting instinctively to something–such as ducking a foul ball–they usually act on the basis of some internal decision. That decision is comprised of elements of thinking, certain kinds of attitudes and feelings, and the priorities of the conscience. When those priorities are firm and unyielding, they will referee between our hearts and minds, so that we act consistently in every situation. Consistently acting one way or another produces a recognizable character.

But what if those values and default choices are unwise, or wrong? This is certainly becoming the case throughout much of our society. In some quarters, when, for example, an unwanted pregnancy is discovered, the default value is abortion. That doesn’t please God, but it’s what people do when their minds and hearts are limited by the constraints of self-interest and reinforced by the pragmatic and narcissistic spirit of the age. Think like that over and over, and it will turn your conscience to mush before whatever you can rationalize as good or right for you, or whatever you might passionately desire.

The believer wants to have God’s priorities as his own, and the place to begin in discovering these is in the Law of God. Happily, God will meet us in this effort, giving us His Spirit (“face to shine”–Ezek. 39:29) so that not only can we understand the Law of God, but we will have the power to live it (Ezek. 36:26, 27). The harder we work at laying the priorities of God “in the bottom” of our souls (as the first Harvard motto had it), the better we will be able to filter our thoughts and purge our affections so that our minds and hearts are kept free of the taint of sin and mere self-interest.

Jesus Christ has set us free from the limiting constraints of our sinful consciences. We are free, in God’s Law, to pursue His priorities, and, when we do, we will find Him there, providing us the power of His Spirit to enable us to live His statutes unto righteousness, peace, and joy (Rom. 14:17,18).

Daily meditation in the Law of God helps us along the path of holiness, righteousness, and goodness (Rom. 7:12). Order your copy of The Law of God, a compilation of the Mosaic Law for contemporary believers, by going to www.MyParuchia.com, point your browser to “Publications,” then click on the drop-down option, “Waxed Tablet Publications.”

–

In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore.

T.M. Moore is 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.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.

The Law of Liberty (17)

Readers will gain a better perspective on the main teaching of this series by reading The Ground for Christian Ethics, by T. M. Go to www.MyParuchia.com, click Publications, then click Waxed Tablet, and scroll down until you see this little volume.

Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart. I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever, to the end. Psalm 119:111,112

In Scripture, the heart is the centerpiece of the soul, the seat of our affections, the wellspring of attitudes, emotions, aspirations, hopes, and desires. Both Solomon and Jesus warned us to keep a close watch over our hearts, because the primary issues of life flow from that source, and it can corrupt and mislead us, if we do not attend to it continuously.

This is why God requires that we love Him with all our hearts. He knows that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, prone to lead us into false affections, misleading desires, unwholesome attitudes, and vain hopes. When we refuse to love God with all our hearts, our hearts will bend toward mere self-interest. That may seem the thing to do just now, but it usually ends up not as satisfying as we’d hoped (Prov. 14:12). How can we break free of the destructive affections that lead us down wrong paths and into box canyons of disappointment?

We need to set our hearts on a proper course, that’s how. If we incline our hearts toward the Law of God–to seek it, love it, delight in it, and persevere in understanding it–we will find God’s testimonies to be a source of joy and a bounteous heritage to guide us in all our ways. If we try reading and studying the Law of God without setting our hearts on it properly, it will only be a burden we’ll soon enough set aside.

This is a matter for prayer. Beginning there, with prayers such as we find in Psalm119:111, 112, and proceeding on to reading God’s Law, meditating in it, envisioning its outworking in our lives, and going forth to obey it, we can nurture proper heart attitudes toward the Law of God, which will liberate us from our own misleading affections, and allow us to live our lives with the heart of God instead.

Daily meditation in the Law of God helps us along the path of holiness, righteousness, and goodness (Rom. 7:12). Order your copy of The Law of God, a compilation of the Mosaic Law for contemporary believers, by going to www.MyParuchia.com, point your browser to “Publications,” then click on the drop-down option, “Waxed Tablet Publications.”

–

In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore.

T.M. Moore is 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.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.

The Law of Liberty (16)

Readers will gain a better perspective on the main teaching of this series by reading The Ground for Christian Ethics, by T. M. Go to www.MyParuchia.com, click Publications, then click Waxed Tablet, and scroll down until you see this little volume.

Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. Psalm 119:34, 35

At times, when I was a kid, I found my parents to be somewhat unreasonable and hard to live with. Whenever I wanted something with which they didn’t agree, they would listen patiently, then tell me, No. I would try to reason with them, to help them see the many advantages of my point of view. But they always prevailed. I swore I would never treat my own children that way.

Then Susie and I had children. And I saw pretty quickly that, while a child’s mind can conceive all manner of advantages for whatever it is he or she wants to have or do, that thinking can often be skewed by the blinders of mere self-interest. At such times, children need the mind of their parents, whether they agree with it or not; otherwise, they might end up in some trouble, or hurt themselves or someone else unnecessarily. I could see this so easily, once I was a parent, and was able to understand the way parents think. But as a child I found my parents’ wisdom more of an annoyance than a blessing.

Many of us may feel that way about the Law of God. We want what we want–let’s say, with respect to the Lord’s Day. We want to do whatever we want on that day–watch TV, play sports, go shopping, all, of course, after having gone to church, and we don’t want to be burdened with having to “rest” all Sunday (whatever that means). We just don’t see how that can be good for us, given the things we’d rather do with our time.

But this is to think with the mind of a child. We may not be able to see it, but our faith suffers when we refuse to submit to God’s counsel concerning the proper use of His Day. In view of the clear teaching of the Law of God concerning the Sabbath, we’d have to say the mind of God runs contrary to much of our thinking about that day and its proper use. Did it ever occur to us that the Law of God might be able to liberate us from childish thinking about the Lord’s Day?

Meditating in the Law of God can enable us to fill out the mind of Christ, which we possess by virtue of our salvation (1 Cor. 2:16), so that we can think with God’s mind and not merely our own. God’s ways and thoughts are far above ours; far above, but not inaccessible. The more we study His Law–indeed, all His Word–the more we will find that our minds can work in parallel with His, leading to blessing for ourselves and others.

Daily meditation in the Law of God helps us along the path of holiness, righteousness, and goodness (Rom. 7:12). Order your copy of The Law of God, a compilation of the Mosaic Law for contemporary believers, by going to www.MyParuchia.com, point your browser to “Publications,” then click on the drop-down option, “Waxed Tablet Publications.”

–

In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore.

T.M. Moore is 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.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.

The Law of Liberty (15)

Readers will gain a better perspective on the main teaching of this series by reading The Ground for Christian Ethics, by T. M. Go to www.MyParuchia.com, click Publications, then click Waxed Tablet, and scroll down until you see this little volume.

Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors. Psalm 119:24

Psalm 119 is a truly miraculous psalm. The Celtic Christians regarded it with awe, and it had a central place in their lives and worship. Its 22 stanzas, each one dedicated to a letter in the Hebrew alphabet (in the Hebrew, all the verses begin with that letter), are a tour de force of attitudes toward and convictions about the Law of God. The overall mood of this psalm is not in the least burdensome; rather, one picks up the sense of the psalmist’s joy and liberation at being so deeply committed to and immersed in the Law of God.

If you pray three stanzas per day, beginning on the Lord’s Day, and four on Saturday, you can work your way through this psalm once a week. I assure you, the discipline will be worth it, for how Psalm 119 can shape your understanding of and approach to the Law of God.

In our verse for today, for example, the psalmist rejoices that he has the Law of God (“testimonies”), rather than merely his own best ideas, to resort to for counsel in daily living. In our postmodern age, when every person is encouraged to be his own best counselor and to have the last word on any matter, without reference to outside authorities, people are beginning to discover the limitations of that way of thinking. In the pursuit of big profits, bankers overburdened borrowers, who disregarded sound judgment to get what they wanted in a home. Investors defrauded clients or led them down blind alleys for the sake of short-term gains, while clients went along with their bunko schemes, contrary to sound investment principles, looking for the quick turn-around. Politicians push their agendas apart from the judgment of history or their constituents, simply because they want what they have determined is best, and they’re not open to voices other than their own.

All around us people are trapped in the constraints of self. The promise of being free from crusty old traditions and settled ways of thinking has “liberated” people into uncertainty, distrust, and confusion. But they who walk by the counsel of God’s Law are free from all such limitations. By delighting in God’s Law we rest our hopes and trust in a Counselor of infinite wisdom, Who knows how we are made to live and has provided clear guidance for any who are willing to follow.

We don’t have to live as slaves to the limits of our own puny thinking; we can be free before God to reach to the limits of His vision of the good life, and how we may attain to that, through obeying His Law.

Daily meditation in the Law of God helps us along the path of holiness, righteousness, and goodness (Rom. 7:12). Order your copy of The Law of God, a compilation of the Mosaic Law for contemporary believers, by going to www.MyParuchia.com, point your browser to “Publications,” then click on the drop-down option, “Waxed Tablet Publications.”

–

In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore.

T.M. Moore is 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.

The Law of Liberty (14)

Readers will gain a better perspective on the main teaching of this series by reading The Ground for Christian Ethics, by T. M. Go to www.MyParuchia.com, click Publications, then click Waxed Tablet, and scroll down until you see this little volume.

“If you hear in one of your cities, which the LORD your God is giving you to dwell there, that certain worthless fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city… then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently.” Deuteronomy 13:12, 14

Contemporary Christians have begun to worship at the altar of tolerance in matters of doctrine and practice. Convinced that it is wrong to judge others, we are allowing false teaching and compromised practices to find their way into the household of faith. Consequently, many churches and believers have lost sight of our mission and abandoned the call to pursue holiness in the fear of God (2 Cor. 7:1).

In his book, In Praise of Prejudice, Theodore Dalrymple (Anthony Daniels) exposes the danger of believing that all judgments are equal. They aren’t. Everyone has prejudices, and not all prejudices (pre-judgments) are evil. Some, indeed, are utterly essential to survival.

For example, I have a prejudice against driving on the wrong side of the road. I think everybody who does that is a danger to society and themselves. They should be arrested, deprived of their licenses, if only for a time, and made to view horrible videos about reckless drivers and their victims. Do you find me judgmental and intolerant? I doubt it.

Jesus commanded His followers to “judge righteous judgment” (John 7:29). That is, we must be able to recognize unrighteousness and to follow courses of action which resist it and move us along the path of Truth. But we must be able to inquire and make search and ask diligently which views and practices are to be considered as unrighteous. Where shall we look to learn this? To the Law of God, of course. The holy and righteous and good Law of God frees us to judge with righteous judgment and, thus, to promote the cause of goodness, beauty, and Truth in all we do.

Daily meditation in the Law of God helps us along the path of holiness, righteousness, and goodness (Rom. 7:12). Order your copy of The Law of God, a compilation of the Mosaic Law for contemporary believers, by going to www.MyParuchia.com, point your browser to “Publications,” then click on the drop-down option, “Waxed Tablet Publications.”

–

In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore.

T.M. Moore is 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.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.

The Law of Liberty (13)

Readers will gain a better perspective on the main teaching of this series by reading The Ground for Christian Ethics, by T. M. Go to www.MyParuchia.com, click Publications, then click Waxed Tablet, and scroll down until you see this little volume.

“When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.” Deuteronomy 18:9

Many Christians today are not finding their faith as real as it is described in the Scriptures. They lack the promised power of God’s Spirit to be consistent witnesses. Polls indicate that we aren’t growing in holiness like we might expect. Neighbor love seems fairly constrained, too, practiced mainly within the safe confines of the believing community, with but little regard for the needs or lost condition of our neighbors. And the hope and joy that lead others to ask what makes us different is but little in evidence.

What’s the problem? Why is our faith in Christ so unreal? Francis Schaeffer was asked that question often, and he had a ready answer. Schaeffer explained that the reason why so few Christians know the full reality of the life of faith is that “while we say we believe one thing, we allow the spirit of the naturalism of the age to creep into our thinking, unrecognized.” The values, priorities, and moral choices or our unsaved neighbors leach into our souls and command our practices, and we don’t seem to be able to recognize what’s happening.

The Law of God frees us from the spirit of the age by providing an unchanging code of morality and justice by which to assess our age and resist its allure. In keeping the Law of God we know freedom from the oppressive spirit of the age. As we follow the Spirit of God, Who instructs us in the Law of God (Ezek. 26:26, 27), we are able to discern truth from error and right from wrong, and to make right choices in all we do.

Jesus said, “You shall know the Truth, and the Truth will make you free” (John 8:32). When we submit our minds to the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16) and take up the Law of God in our meditation and practice, we discover the perspective and power needed for recognizing the subtle spirit of the age and standing against it. This is the way to real meaning, purpose, and joy in life–in the full freedom of Christ, walking in His Law.

Daily meditation in the Law of God helps us along the path of holiness, righteousness, and goodness (Rom. 7:12). Order your copy of The Law of God, a compilation of the Mosaic Law for contemporary believers, by going to www.MyParuchia.com, point your browser to “Publications,” then click on the drop-down option, “Waxed Tablet Publications.”

–

In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore.

T.M. Moore is 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.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.

The Law of Liberty (12)

Readers will gain a better perspective on the main teaching of this series by reading The Ground for Christian Ethics, by T. M. Go to www.MyParuchia.com, click Publications, then click Waxed Tablet, and scroll down until you see this little volume.

“And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us.” Deuteronomy 6:25

Our secular age is hardly a strong friend to the righteousness of God. Increasingly, our culture drifts from the moorings of goodness and beauty which tethered previous generations. Practices abominable to God have become institutionalized in the law of the land. Personal morality is determined by pragmatic principles of pleasure and gain, rather than by the unchanging standards of God’s Law.

And yet, even those who promote such an agenda will insist that they are good people and are only doing what they understand to be right, true, and good. They want to be righteous, that is, and to be thought of as such, but they insist on defining righteousness on their own terms. Thus, all goodness and decency are personalized and made purely relativistic, depending only on such things as opportunity, desire, circumstance, and ability. Longing to be righteous, and to be regarded as such, people today are instead slaves to unrighteous lusts, and this is a bondage they have no power to escape and which, over time, they rationalize as no better or worse than other people they know.

But the believer, free in Christ, does not have to invent standards of righteousness to suit his errant and fickle tastes. In the fear and love of God, and the power of God’s Spirit, the believer looks to the Law of God and finds therein liberty from his petty lusts and desires to seek that which is truly good, truly beautiful, and truly righteous. All men want to be thought of as being righteous; only the believer in Christ is actually free to know this according to unchanging standards of goodness and truth.

Our lives become truly meaningful only in the pursuit of righteousness according to the standards of God’s Law, the example of Jesus Christ, and the power of the indwelling Spirit. In this pursuit of righteousness, though others may look askance at our morality–because it condemns their own–we can know that we dwell in the pleasure of God. And in that pleasure, we find full, free, abundant life as we delight in, study, and obey the holy and righteous and good Law of God (Rom. 7:12).

Daily meditation in the Law of God helps us along the path of holiness, righteousness, and goodness (Rom. 7:12). Order your copy of The Law of God, a compilation of the Mosaic Law for contemporary believers, by going to www.MyParuchia.com, point your browser to “Publications,” then click on the drop-down option, “Waxed Tablet Publications.”

–

In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore.

T.M. Moore is 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.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.

The Law of Liberty (11)

Readers will gain a better perspective on the main teaching of this series by reading The Ground for Christian Ethics, by T. M. Go to www.MyParuchia.com, click Publications, then click Waxed Tablet, and scroll down until you see this little volume.

“Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, and be careful to do all the words of this law…” Deuteronomy 31:12

Unbelievers live constantly in the fear of death (Heb. 2:15). Why? A variety of reasons: they dread whatever pain may be associated with it; feel remorse at leaving friends and family behind; regret the loss of whatever fleeting happiness they have known in this life; and fear the unknown that lies beyond the grave. The fear of death is, in many ways, an unspoken fear of meeting God, unprepared. Most probably will not admit this; but because all men are made in the image of God and know Him through His works (Rom. 1:18-20), they can never completely escape the sense that one day they will stand before Him for judgment.

The fear of death influences men’s lives in many ways. They pursue a frenzied agenda to know as much comfort and pleasure as they can in this life. They euphemize death–“passing away,” “crossing over”–in order to mitigate its dread and consequences. They strive for eternal youth or, at least, the prolonging of their days on earth by whatever means possible. Their lives become, in many ways, a relentless hedging against and dodging of the “Grim Reaper.”

The believer does not shy away from the fear of God. Instead, he knows it to be his proper environment, since the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge and the source of all God’s richest blessings. Thus, we fear God and love Him, at one and the same time–fear, because of Who He is and what He is capable of where wretched sinners such as we are concerned; love, because of what He has done in Jesus Christ for wretched sinners, and because, in His Law we are free to overcome the constraints of sin and to live in the righteousness of Christ.

So then, let us by all means nurture the fear of God, without fear, as it were. For, though we fear Him, we love Him Who has first loved us. And our love for Him, underscored by fear, drives us to His Law to find the path of true freedom He has marked out for all who will live with Him forever–without fear.

Daily meditation in the Law of God helps us along the path of holiness, righteousness, and goodness (Rom. 7:12). Order your copy of The Law of God, a compilation of the Mosaic Law for contemporary believers, by going to www.MyParuchia.com, point your browser to “Publications,” then click on the drop-down option, “Waxed Tablet Publications.”

–

In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore.

T.M. Moore is 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.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.

The Law of Liberty (10)

Readers will gain a better perspective on the main teaching of this series by reading The Ground for Christian Ethics, by T. M. Go to www.MyParuchia.com, click Publications, then click Waxed Tablet, and scroll down until you see this little volume.

“You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them… And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you…You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.” Leviticus 20:22, 23, 26

One of the great fears that haunt the followers of Jesus Christ is that others might regard them as odd. This fear is especially strong among young people, toward whom their peers can be vicious and unrelenting. But it affects every believer in some form or another. We fear that, if we stand out as holy unto the Lord, others will look askance at us, and perhaps even mock, scorn, or shun us.

But we do not need to live in such fear. The reason? God takes pleasure in our being a separate and holy people unto Him. When the pleasure of God becomes the driving force in our lives, it won’t matter one way or another how others regard us. Walking in the Law of liberty, as Jesus did, we can know that, like Him, our lives are pleasing to our Father.

The pleasure of God is a strong sensation, as any will report who experience it regularly. In the pleasure of God we feel that nothing can deprive us of our joy. No change of circumstance–be it ever so harsh–can cause us to lose our peace or derail us from our hope. The world may, indeed, buffet and barrage us. But we are not guided in our daily activities by the fear of men.

How can the pleasure of God become such a strong sensation that it overrides and cancels every contrary affection? By walking in God’s Law, delighting in it, and knowing that we are a living sacrifice, acceptable to God and, in the truest sense, a blessing to all who encounter us (Rom. 12:1, 2).

Let us not dance around the fear of men. Rather, let us prepare for it daily by betaking ourselves to the Law and the testimonies of God, being clothed in the righteousness of Jesus (Eph. 4:17-24), and living as salt, light, and leaven to our benighted age. As we daily inhabit the pleasure of God, the hope that pleasure engenders within us will cancel every fear and, increasingly, make us the objects of others’ curiosity (1 Pet. 3:15).

Daily meditation in the Law of God helps us along the path of holiness, righteousness, and goodness (Rom. 7:12). Order your copy of The Law of God, a compilation of the Mosaic Law for contemporary believers, by going to www.MyParuchia.com, point your browser to “Publications,” then click on the drop-down option, “Waxed Tablet Publications.”

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore.

T.M. Moore is 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.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.