Listen to the Spirit – The Law of God: Questions and Answers

Listen to the Spirit
The Law of God: Questions and Answers

How should we understand and apply the Law of God today?

“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” Ezekiel 36:26, 27

It has been the genius of Satan over the last generation to divide the Church on the question of the Holy Spirit. So contentious can believers be about the Spirit that, in many churches, leaders consider it safer just not to talk about Him very much.

This same situation has arisen in various periods of Church history. Satan knows that the Spirit is the key to the Kingdom. Without active involvement with the Spirit, Christians are powerless either to know God or to serve Him with good works.

In those churches where the Spirit is a focus, too often we want to begin with the higher courses in the Spirit’s curriculum—His gifts, power for witness, and so forth.

But the Spirit has a core curriculum which He chooses to employ in equipping us for every good work. Yeah, you guessed it.

How can we know, enjoy, walk in, or be filled with the Spirit when we refuse to sit at His feet in His most basic course: the Law of God? The Spirit is given to empower us for love. No wonder He insists on teaching us the Law of God! As we’ve seen, here all the teaching of Scripture begins to unfold around the two commands to love God and our neighbors. If we don’t get love right at the beginning of God’s Word, we’ll never get it right anywhere else.

Thus, understanding the Law of God would appear to be essential to learning from the Spirit whatever He intends to teach us concerning the divine economy and our role in it.

Where the Spirit of God is concerned, school’s in session. We only are to blame if we choose to play hooky from His core curriculum.

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 clicking on our Book Store. While you’re there, sign up to receive our newsletters, Crosfigell and Voices Together.

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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.