Laws of Love
A simple statement can state a profound truth. : “The law is found, not made.” (Matt Kenitzer).
He was communicating that God has left us all the laws we will ever need for our nation (and the world). His law is not just to inform our spiritual lives but He is very detailed in His laws that are a great structure for our everyday lives on earth, today, in time and history. We need not have a multitude of man-made laws.
It is a command of God that we obey His commandments – but we are also reminded that they are good for us.
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 1 John 2b-4
Do American Christians have this kind of love for, and faith in, God that we will obey His commands, trusting His promise to bless our obedience?
One of His commands is for us to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, and minds. The same passage (Mark 12:29-31) says that it is equally important to love our neighbors.
If we take God’s commands in their simplest form, the Ten Commandments of Exodus 20, then we can see that by obeying God’s Laws we are loving our neighbors.
Obeying God’s law means we will not present to our neighbors a false God or blaspheme God’s name, demeaning His character, thereby confusing the truth of who He is. We will honor our parents, a command with a reward attached (that you may live long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you). We will not kill our neighbor or cheat on our spouses, or steal from them or falsely accuse them of crimes. Lastly, we will not covet what they have, wanting them to be rid of their possessions so we can have them.
These are definite acts of love. But, God’s law, leading to a shower of love for our neighbors, goes much deeper than this by laying out a host of applications. As an example, there is a simple one that sets a standard in Deuteronomy 22:8. In it God protects the family and the guests of the family. It says, “When you build a new house, then you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring guilt of bloodshed on your household if anyone falls from it.” In other words, don’t be negligent; be diligent in looking out for the welfare of your neighbor.
When we obey Him and look after the welfare of our neighbors, even our closest ones that live in our homes (a.k.a. family), we are making life here better. Imagine if every wife respected her husband and every husband loved his wife. Family life would be a joy (as I pray yours is!). But, more important than the joy, it frees us from the anxiety and the fears that keep us from serving the Lord and growing His Kingdom.
When disobedience to God’s laws is prevalent, there is no peace or joy. Our energies are spent on the emotional upheaval in our lives. Too often, we then look for more worldly things to comfort and give us pleasure. What if we were to think about how not obeying God’s law affects us as a nation?
Are we willing to say that abortion is murder? God says, “Thou shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13).
Will we teach the truth of gender? “Male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27).
The list of what needs to be corrected to conform to God’s truth may seem overwhelming in our current culture. But it’s as simple as familiarizing ourselves with Scripture. Every Christian needs to know God’s law in order to please Him and obey His mandate to “take dominion.”
When we think about how unbelievers will “find” the law of God, His laws that display His love for His people, we have to ask with the scriptures, “How will they know if no one tells them?” (Romans 10:14). This is not a task for a new President. This is a work for the Church of Jesus Christ.
Beth this is another good article addressing important things we should consider about the Law Word of God.
Something I have been studying over the many years since the Spirit of God changed me from a natural man into a spiritual man of God is how God expects His people to worship Him in Spirit and Truth. We know that Jesus in speaking with the woman at the well made clear that the New Testament Church has no appointed central sanctuary where all true worship must take place.
Does this mean that today we are to worship God as we gather in local Churches?
“For the law, having a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make those who come to it perfect.” (Hebrews 10:1)
Jesus came to do the will of His Father to “take away the first [covenant], that he may establish the second [covenant].” (Hebrews 10:10) But we know that by “one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified [or set apart] for God’s purposes.” (Hebrews 10:14).
What purposes of God are we set apart to accomplish here on earth?
“This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” (Hebrews 10:16-17)
God’s people are now sanctified or set apart from the unregenerate unbelieving people who are united under the secular humanistic civil form of government and God’s people now live, move, and have their being in Christ united under the perfect Law of Liberty and the government that was placed on Jesus’ shoulder and the advancement of which there will be no end.
“Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for “us” [not for unbelievers], through the veil, that is to say, His flesh. And having a high priest over the house of God [which is our domicile or one fixed and permanent home in the Kingdom of Heaven] let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold faith without wavering for he is faithful that promised. And let us consider one another to provoke unto LOVE and good works. Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but ‘exhorting” one another, and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:19-25)
God’s people are to “gather together” to “exhort” one another and we are to “exhort” one another “daily”, while it is called Today, lest any of you (us) be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:13) I write to you and my brothers in Christ to provoke them to love me enough to “exhort” me as I exhort them. But, most of the time all I receive from my brothers is silence. I receive no exhortation and no correction. Most of the time all I receive is silence.
Today we can “gather together” without being in the same building as you and I are doing right now on your blog. You are teaching and “exhorting” or encouraging your readers to “love God’s Law” and I am as one of your readers responding to your teaching or exhortation by lovingly sharing my understanding of God’s Law and our duty and the ways I believe we are to express our love of God’s Law under the New Covenant of Christ and by also asking questions of one another in good faith.
We also can come boldly before the throne of God through the Holy Spirit and our Lord and ask for guidance as to how we ought to worship God in spirit and in faith.
When you say, “Every Christian needs to know God’s law to please Him and obey His mandate to ‘take dominion” are you suggesting God’s people “take dominion” over the secular humanistic body politic by doing away with the civil government’s civil or municipal laws that governs its citizens and use the Law of God to governed its secular unregenerate unbelieving subject fellow citizens and consenting members of the secular body politic?
“God said to Adam and Eve before their fall to: “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue “it” [the earth], and ‘have” [not take] dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, and every living ‘thing” [not every living man or secular society or government] that moves upon the earth.”
Would you agree that when it comes to our relationship with secular society or the body politic God’s people are to come out and be separate and serve the Lord their God and Him only? When a natural man is changed into a spiritual man of God is it not true that “all things become new” including his standing or place in relationship with others in the secular political community who are unregenerate members in and of the secular political community?
At a recent town meeting, Chris and Dave suggested God’s people should form coalitions to “defy the state and federal government edicts or statutes” because there is more power in numbers.
The Bible tells us that Christians are to seek to change the world by making disciples. We are commissioned to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations [i.e. to call out of the secular body politic God’s elect from among all pagan nations of people] baptizing them [i.e. the elect reconciled to God] in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching THEM {i.e. the elect called out and reconciled to God] to observe ALL that I have commanded YOU {i.e. God’s elect]. And behold, I am with you [God’s called out elect] always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:18-20)
Jesus didn’t say go overthrow Caesar, or go reform the secular government, or go address every secular social, economic, and political injustice.” Rather he said, “Go and make disciples.” Jesus’ mandate is clear, we are to “Go and make disciples” and in His stead call all men to be reconciled to God. This seems to me to be Jesus’ “particular approach” for his disciples to take in addressing the world’s brokenness. It is a personal, individual, and loving heart approach that He wants His people to take.
We must remember that Jesus already reigns over all things in heaven and earth and that He has been ruling providentially over all things [whether the pagans recognize His rule or not]. He is committed to having all things work together for the good of those “called according to HIS PURPOSE,” not to do our purpose.
God’s people have a choice as to whom we will serve. If we think it evil to serve God, we should choose whom we will serve. But, no one can serve two distinct sovereigns in spirit and truth. The problem for God’s people today is they are attempting to serve two sovereigns, one secular and one sacred.
The sad thing about this is most of God’s people refuse to discuss and exhort each other to seek to agree to the truth of what we are called to do and not to do.
I would share with you and your husband how I work out my salvation by correcting the civil record to reflect my change of standing in my relationship with the unregenerate unbelievers in the secular political community that I am “in” but no longer a member “of.”
I will answer any questions you may have. I will share how I seek to change this broken secular society and its civil form of government by making good-faith inquiries and asking the civil authorities questions they have a fiduciary duty to answer. I will share the responses I receive from civil government agents as well. But if my brothers and sisters in Christ are unwilling to help me establish the truth of our change of standing in but not of the world then how can I justify spending so much time seeking to
I use this method because it is written that we are to agree with our adversary while we are in the way with him [to court] lest he deliver us to the judge and the judge deliver us to the officer and he cast us into prison where we will stay until we pay every penny.
If you claim to be citizens of the United States and then defy the “edicts” or statutes of the state and federal government you may find yourselves being delivered to the judge. They cannot do anything to us for asking questions and confessing our true standing as sojourning strangers and pilgrims on this earth as did Abraham.
Remember it was because Abraham declared and confessed his true standing in the land of promise that God said He was not “ashamed to be called Abraham’s God.” Don’t you think God will be ashamed to be called our God if we do not also do as Abraham? (Hebrews 11:7-16)
We dwell in Pennsylvania as in a foreign land because we too are sojourning strangers and pilgrims as was Abraham.
I have declared to you the whole counsel of God as I understand it in my above comments. If you disagree with my reading of Hebrews 11: 7-16 and the other passages I have referred to above please correct my errors and teach me how you read these passages of the Law Word of God our only infallible rule of faith and practice..
May God bless your home and family and remember we are to made PEACE with the civil authorities, not war against them.
Peace
Harry – Ambassador for King Jesus and His Kingdom of Heaven