A Work of God’s Law – Uses of the Law: To Engage God’s Spirit (7)

A Work of God’s Law

Uses of the Law: To Engage God’s Spirit (7)

“And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” Ezekiel 36:27

The Spirit of God is the Father’s great promise to His children, as Jesus explained. He gives us new life; He works in us unto sanctification and for the Kingdom; He will keep us unto the Day of Redemption. He is our great Treasure, Resource, and Deposit.

Does it make sense, therefore, to deprive Him of the tools He prefers to use in accomplishing His great work within us? Would we engage a builder to construct a home for us, and then insist that he use only a hammer and screwdriver for the task?

But this is what we do with the Spirit of God when we do not immerse ourselves in the Law of God, reading and meditating day and night so that He might use the Law to search, sanctify, and transform us into the image of Jesus Christ (Ps. 1; 2 Cor. 3:12-18).

The Law matters so much because it is a key to understanding all the rest of Scripture. You cannot make sense of the Prophets or the Wisdom literature apart from the Law. The Gospels and the work of Jesus Christ cannot be fully appreciated apart from the Law. The repeated exhortations and teachings of the Apostles to pursue good works and bring holiness to completion in the fear of God will be but vaguely focused unless we are rooted in the Law of God.

The Spirit may dwell within us as a result of grace and faith; but we will not realize His full potential until we place in His hands, day by day, the resources for building our house of faith that He is wont to use for the task, beginning with the Law of God.

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.