A Thought

“Deal bountifully with Your servant, that I may live and keep Your word.  Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law.”  Psalm 119:17-18

It is a shame, actually, that since the Reformation “the law” has been given a bad connotation as nothing more than a list of “do’s and don’ts”; restrictions that do not allow us to be all we can be or to do all it pleases us to do.  Yet the psalmist regards “the law” – aka, the “word” of the Lord – as life itself from which he expects to “see wondrous things”.  The writer celebrates “the law” as the ultimate means of grace by and through which he draws nearer to the Lord.  “The law” reveals life, and the writer’s obedience to “the law” affirms his own faith and willingness to follow the Lord in spite of the world’s inherent conflict with “the law”.

It is true enough that we are “under grace”, but it is hardly a biblical fact that we are excused from that which defines us as a people of faith.  Jesus Himself said, “He who has My commandments and keeps then, it is he who loves Me.  And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father and I will love him and manifest Myself to him” (John 14:21). 

Obedience to the Law does not save us; our obedience defines us.  Our obedience perfects our faith, sanctifies our lives, and acknowledges the Holy Father not only as “Savior” and “Redeemer” but as our “Lord”.  We must not dismiss the Law as somehow useless to us, for it is in our obedience to the Law by which we attest to the unbelievers what faith really can do.  Let our own prayer be that the Lord “open our eyes that [we] may see [such] wondrous things”, things not yet revealed to us but things which will become a permanent part of who we truly are – and who He truly is to us.

Blessings,

Michael