Free to Have God – The Law of Liberty (8)

Free to Have God

The Law of Liberty (8)

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.

“I am the LORD your God…you shall have no other gods before me.” Exodus 20:2, 3

In City of God Augustine mercilessly mocked the god-crazy Romans of his day, who had a god for anything you could imagine–not just the big things, like harvest, rains, and protection in war, but gods to watch over the household fire, teach a child to stand to count to twenty; gods for the chin, for passing from youth to adulthood, and on and on. With so many gods to remember and appease, it’s amazing the Romans had time for anything else! Those who were sincere about their faith were literally slaves to the oblations and devotions they owed to these false deities day by day (IV.xi).

This is not unlike many people today, who have chosen as their gods everything from work to wealth, play to pleasure, and fun to fornication. These are the idols to which unbelievers in our day have enslaved themselves in the vain pursuit of happiness and self-worth. None of these is sufficient to deliver all the hoped-for promise of happiness, so they must keep up and pursue as many idols as their lives can sustain within a 24-hour day. Convinced that their happiness is bound up in things, circumstances, and people, they pursue these relentlessly, but achieve them only with disappointment.

The believer in Jesus Christ is free to have one God only–the only true God. We do not have to guess about what pleases Him or wonder whether we have done enough each day to satisfy His demands. Jesus is all our satisfaction; we plead the Savior to our heavenly Father, and, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we take up obedience to God’s Law as our way of saying “Thank You” for our salvation, and of knowing and enjoying more of that salvation day by day. We are free in the Law of liberty because Christ has brought us through its demands and threats into the very presence of God; and God has given us His Holy Spirit to enable us to understand and obey the Law, that we might be transformed to be like Jesus (2 Cor. 3:12-18).

“Let goods and kindred go…” Luther was right. In Christ, and in His Law, we are free to worship and serve only the one true God, and He has not left us to guess about how we may be pleasing to Him, and fulfilled in every aspect of our lives.

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.