The laws of God are like that. They are designed to manage life. They make it work the way that its been designed to work. They cannot be obliterated just because we don't like them. They work day in and day out.
They are good and life-giving and designed to bless as we cooperate with them. Hence the human dilemma. We break laws. That’s just what we do. And then we suffer the consequences. Hence the higher laws of God’s grace are the only ones that can deliver us from this human dilemma.
Example: Revenge is wired into our very souls. Its flows, righteously, out of a desire for what is right. It is technically a law of life that was righteously created into us to spur us towards justice. What does God say about revenge? He says don’t take revenge...here let me do it for you! This is the grace of God superseding this righteous law.
Why?
Because taking our own revenge is basically a dependence on myself to make things right, according to my own power, my own opportunities, and my own understanding. If you compare those three things that we own to those three things that God owns...who do you suppose wins the depth factor? Who has more power, opportunity and understanding? You and me? or the One who can speak a word and make universes happen? the One who is always around, everywhere? the One who happens to know all individuals better than they do?
Duh....
When I release to Him the obvious wisdom of letting Him do something for me that He can do a gazillion times better than me, its a done deal.
I am released from all that bitter bile that rises up inside of me as I plot and plan and relive the injustice. I am freed from the resentment, the fears, the rages that wreak havoc on my physical being. I am encased in peace. I am comforted with love. I am freed to live in the joy of this moment without having it hijacked by this pressured demand of self-dependent revenge.
This is cooperating with the law of God in union with the grace of Jesus. He takes care of me as I release my desires/needs to Him. Its why its so important to learn His “laws”, “ways” “paths”....whatever you want to call those powers of life that just work themselves out day in and day out.
We can’t escape the laws of life. But we can find the life-giving blessing in them as we release our self-dependence over to the loving invitation of living life in union with our Creator/Savior and find that He enables the both of us to be together in cooperating with His ways, laws, paths...
So, its not wise at all to ignore our great need to learn His ways/laws and to walk with Him in His paths. The laws of God are boundaries of Life keeping us from eternal harm. But law-keeping is not my job. My job is choosing who I will trust with my life. Will it be my own self-dependence, based on inadequate power and understanding, in union with a malevolent rebel or will it be in One who would suffer crucifixion torments just so we could be connected again to the God of all? Those two options really are the only two options.
And it really does just come down to the trust issue.
My experience of putting this to the test is that when people have been against me in unrighteous ways, and when I have run to my Father who is over all and give Him all the things in my heart about it with hope in His sense of justice for me, I am saved from the torments of plotting revenge, reliving the hurts and the physically destructive forces of rage. I am given a front row seat to watch my Father take revenge for me.
I must say, the “show” has been magnificent. Satisfying in every way. Even sparking compassion for the one Father is tending to on my behalf because of the obvious losing that goes on for him/her.
Knowing this law of releasing revenge into His capable hands has been nothing but an amazing blessing, life-giving in so many ways. So when it comes to God’s laws, I totally affirm and concur that we need to know them.
What we mustn’t do to ourselves or to anyone is lay the whip on us to do them by ourselves. To lay the onus of responsibility of their completion on our abilities. We are, after all, humans. We can’t.
The wonder is that we can respond to them as an invitation to Life. A God who loves us offers to us His hand to take (all because of the myriad issues involved in the cross...the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus) so that we can walk through life as He enables us to cooperate with His laws by His constant giving of His life to us. It isn’t a loss of self/personhood. It is a joining up of two to create a new life spawned by the trusting obedience of cooperation with Him. A new life happens in which both of us are experiencing the same thing.
To pursue this is to enter into one sam-hillish process. No denying it. It turns us inside out!!! But its so worth it. Its way past worth the difficulties of the process. The awesome factor is through the roof.
Its really too big to adequately and thoroughly describe. But there is my best effort in describing the value of God’s laws.
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