An Attainable Worldview – The Worldview of God’s Law: First Things (7)

An Attainable Worldview

The Worldview of God’s Law: First Things (7)

Attaining the blessings and promises of God begins in the heart.

“Oh that they had such a mind as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!” Deuteronomy 6:29

Believers who are skeptical about the continuing validity of the Law of God tend to see the Law as oppressive, merely external, and a hindrance to Christian joy. Such a view can only be described as idiotic—self-referential merely, rather than derived from the plain teaching of God’s Word.

God holds out the blessings of His Law as attainable for all who keep them, “that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!” Unless we believe that God delights in taunting or lying to us, we must embrace the notion that the good He promises to those who keep His Covenant can actually be theirs, now and forever.

But obedience to God’s Law, and the realization of all it promises, begin in the heart (Hebrew: lev, not “mind” as the ESV unhappily renders it). Unless God works in our hearts, to cut away the heart of stone and give us a heart of new flesh, we can never realize the full benefits of the Biblical worldview of His Law (cf. Deut. 30:1-10; Ezek. 36:26, 27).

Living within the blessed worldview outlined in God’s Law is thus, first of all, a matter of what we most earnestly desire. If we do not love God supremely, and love His Law as His gift of love to us, then we will only delude ourselves by thinking that we can know His blessings by any other means. No amount of participation in Christian worship, church programs and ministries, daily devotions, or fellowship with other believers will produce for us the full blessings which obedience to His Law, from the heart, holds in store.

Jesus is the key. He came to bind us back to God, give us a new heart, indwell us by His Spirit, teach us all His truth, and make us willing and able to do what pleases God. Through Him, through His righteousness and work within us, we may expect to know ever-increasing measures of full and abundant life, and greatness in His Kingdom, as we learn, practice, and encourage one another in the Law of God.

The Biblical worldview of God’s Law thus depends supremely on knowing, seeking, and following Jesus Christ. His true disciples will, in His power, walk the path of obedience He Himself walked (1 John 2:1-6).

Following Jesus means embracing the priorities of His Kingdom, as T. M. explains in his article, “The Priorities of the Kingdom.” Check it out at http://www.ailbe.org/columns/civics/item/2085-jesus-the-priorities-of-the-kingdom.

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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.