Both we and our fathers have sinned. We have committed iniquity. We have done wickedness. Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider Your wondrous works. They did not remember the abundance of Your steadfast love, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. Yet He saved them for His name's sake, that He might make known His mighty power. He rebuked the Red Sea and it became dry, and He led them through the deep as through a desert. So He saved them from the hand of the foe and redeemed them from the power of the enemy. And the waters covered their adversaries. Not one of them was left. Then they believed His words. They sang His praise.
But they soon forgot His works. They did not wait for His counsel. But they had wanton cravings in the wilderness, and put God to the test in the desert..... (Verses 6-14)
The first words my children spoke were Da-da and no. In that order. Ma-ma came later. Oh, well. What in us, and it's not just the Farishes, causes our first response to boundaries to be NO! We are born to be self-willed little smarty-pants. People who want our own way even when we are too small to even know the ramifications of our own desires. All I had to do to create an opposite response from my kids was to tell them what they could not do. Immediately, that became the very thing they had to accomplish. Sound anything like the first few chapters of Genesis? But that one tree was such a tester. And rules show us our hearts in a way life without them doesn't. But life without parameters is chaos. Here's what I noticed about my children later on, though. My boundaries were fixed when they were babies, then toddlers, then preschool, etc. Not always the same rules because they were growing up and understanding ramifications by then. But less and less did I have to punish them. Why? Because they understood the boundaries were about my love for them. My kids will tell you this. At some point the rules were not as important as the respect my children had for me and their dad. They caught the spirit of the authority over them. Would rather not break the rule because it would cause disappointment or sorrow in us. And they loved us too much to want that. They weren't perfect as we aren't before our Father, but the intent to please is still there in them. And, I pray, transferred in spirit to their relationship with their God and Savior.
The finger of God wrote ten laws, rules for His people, on smooth stone tablets in the presence of Moses on Mount Sinai. He wanted His children to know the things He won't allow. Parameters for their lives that make living not only doable but prosperous. The reason they needed these rules was apparent by the craven behavior they were participating in at the very moment God's hand was writing their rule book. The children He loved so much were dancing naked before a gold cow they'd made to replace their Redeemer God. Drunk and salacious, out of control, breaking the heart of God. If He'd not told them how to live, they'd have destroyed themselves in the desert. Never arriving at the land He'd promised to bless them in. Yes, Moses had to go up the mountain a second time because he broke the first set of commandments over their heads. So mad, Moses took on the indignity the One Who'd love them enough to free them from slavery surely felt as He, too, watched the debauchery of His children. But the difference in the people and Moses is that Moses loved His God. Knew Him intimately. Walked and talked with Him as friend to friend. Knew His voice from the burning bush. Trusted God's hand to make a stick miraculous. Moses had history with God. But if he'd not obeyed all God told Him to do, the Israelites might still be in Egypt. Moses obeyed a God he loved.
Commandments reign us in. Make life manageable. The law was given by God to show us what sin is. Without the law we are anarchists with no boundaries. Animals surviving by eating off each other. So the law tells us who we are. And what God wants for us, not from us. The law is about loving us enough to want us to live in harmony with each other and with Him. We obey, at first, simply because it's a law and breaking it has consequences. God said, "No!" So we don't. Mean old God. Why would He say I can't have sex before marriage or steal from the department store? Why do I have to obey my parents or love only Him? So maybe in the beginning we stomp around like my kids did and just do the thing because we don't want God to whack our backsides. But God made the rules so we'd have relationship to Him--so we'd be bonded to Him as child to parent. Although God sent Moses down the mountain with a rule book, He didn't excuse Himself from His people and leave them with God's Ten Things That Will Ruin Your Fun. No! In a cloud by day and with fire by night, the Father of the children of Israel inhabited the camp with them. The point wasn't, "Obey these rules or else, and I'm coming back in two weeks to see how well you did!" The point was, if you obey the demands, I can get you where I have promised with an oath to take you. If you obey my directives, You will love me and become like Me. And you will make the journey swift and bearable." They didn't. And it took forty years too long for the Egypt crowd to die off so their children could receive the promise. Joshua and Caleb caught the spirit of authority. Knew why Moses loved His God. Loved Him, too. It was the boundaries God set that actually showed how much He cared for His wandering children. Had they understood the heart of their God in the beginning, the journey to Canaan would've taken less than a month!
The Ten Commandments used to scare me as a little Baptist Christian girl. What if I don't get it right all the time? And I didn't, which was even more disturbing. I really wanted God to be proud of me. Maybe He'd give me a good citizenship button to wear. And in my humility, I'm sure I'd have worn it with pride. It really wasn't until I became an adult, had children myself, that I fully appreciated the rules. "Don't touch the stove!" wasn't about ruining my kid's fun. It was about protection. "Don't cross the street!" wasn't a command to keep my kids from playing with the other kid beckoning from the sidewalk on the other side. All my rules were about loving my children. And they had to become a little older and a little wiser to get that. What mother actually lets her kid play in the street? What kind of God lets us destroy ourselves? My rules weren't perfect. God's are. And He is. Now that I have a few gray hairs (possibly, I keep my hair blond, so maybe I do), my desire to obey my God is born of my relationship with Him. Not only do I seek to please Him, but I understand more every day how my boundaries enrich my life. No more giving in to wanton cravings...in fact, I hope no more wildernesses. I've been thirsty and hungry as a result of No!. May my response be ever Yes! to the One Who loves me enough to slap my hand once in a while in order to save my life. And Yes! to the Spirit of God Whose indwelling presence in me helps me keep the law in a way the wandering Israelites couldn't have imagined.
There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Romans 8
But they soon forgot His works. They did not wait for His counsel. But they had wanton cravings in the wilderness, and put God to the test in the desert..... (Verses 6-14)
The first words my children spoke were Da-da and no. In that order. Ma-ma came later. Oh, well. What in us, and it's not just the Farishes, causes our first response to boundaries to be NO! We are born to be self-willed little smarty-pants. People who want our own way even when we are too small to even know the ramifications of our own desires. All I had to do to create an opposite response from my kids was to tell them what they could not do. Immediately, that became the very thing they had to accomplish. Sound anything like the first few chapters of Genesis? But that one tree was such a tester. And rules show us our hearts in a way life without them doesn't. But life without parameters is chaos. Here's what I noticed about my children later on, though. My boundaries were fixed when they were babies, then toddlers, then preschool, etc. Not always the same rules because they were growing up and understanding ramifications by then. But less and less did I have to punish them. Why? Because they understood the boundaries were about my love for them. My kids will tell you this. At some point the rules were not as important as the respect my children had for me and their dad. They caught the spirit of the authority over them. Would rather not break the rule because it would cause disappointment or sorrow in us. And they loved us too much to want that. They weren't perfect as we aren't before our Father, but the intent to please is still there in them. And, I pray, transferred in spirit to their relationship with their God and Savior.
The finger of God wrote ten laws, rules for His people, on smooth stone tablets in the presence of Moses on Mount Sinai. He wanted His children to know the things He won't allow. Parameters for their lives that make living not only doable but prosperous. The reason they needed these rules was apparent by the craven behavior they were participating in at the very moment God's hand was writing their rule book. The children He loved so much were dancing naked before a gold cow they'd made to replace their Redeemer God. Drunk and salacious, out of control, breaking the heart of God. If He'd not told them how to live, they'd have destroyed themselves in the desert. Never arriving at the land He'd promised to bless them in. Yes, Moses had to go up the mountain a second time because he broke the first set of commandments over their heads. So mad, Moses took on the indignity the One Who'd love them enough to free them from slavery surely felt as He, too, watched the debauchery of His children. But the difference in the people and Moses is that Moses loved His God. Knew Him intimately. Walked and talked with Him as friend to friend. Knew His voice from the burning bush. Trusted God's hand to make a stick miraculous. Moses had history with God. But if he'd not obeyed all God told Him to do, the Israelites might still be in Egypt. Moses obeyed a God he loved.
Commandments reign us in. Make life manageable. The law was given by God to show us what sin is. Without the law we are anarchists with no boundaries. Animals surviving by eating off each other. So the law tells us who we are. And what God wants for us, not from us. The law is about loving us enough to want us to live in harmony with each other and with Him. We obey, at first, simply because it's a law and breaking it has consequences. God said, "No!" So we don't. Mean old God. Why would He say I can't have sex before marriage or steal from the department store? Why do I have to obey my parents or love only Him? So maybe in the beginning we stomp around like my kids did and just do the thing because we don't want God to whack our backsides. But God made the rules so we'd have relationship to Him--so we'd be bonded to Him as child to parent. Although God sent Moses down the mountain with a rule book, He didn't excuse Himself from His people and leave them with God's Ten Things That Will Ruin Your Fun. No! In a cloud by day and with fire by night, the Father of the children of Israel inhabited the camp with them. The point wasn't, "Obey these rules or else, and I'm coming back in two weeks to see how well you did!" The point was, if you obey the demands, I can get you where I have promised with an oath to take you. If you obey my directives, You will love me and become like Me. And you will make the journey swift and bearable." They didn't. And it took forty years too long for the Egypt crowd to die off so their children could receive the promise. Joshua and Caleb caught the spirit of authority. Knew why Moses loved His God. Loved Him, too. It was the boundaries God set that actually showed how much He cared for His wandering children. Had they understood the heart of their God in the beginning, the journey to Canaan would've taken less than a month!
The Ten Commandments used to scare me as a little Baptist Christian girl. What if I don't get it right all the time? And I didn't, which was even more disturbing. I really wanted God to be proud of me. Maybe He'd give me a good citizenship button to wear. And in my humility, I'm sure I'd have worn it with pride. It really wasn't until I became an adult, had children myself, that I fully appreciated the rules. "Don't touch the stove!" wasn't about ruining my kid's fun. It was about protection. "Don't cross the street!" wasn't a command to keep my kids from playing with the other kid beckoning from the sidewalk on the other side. All my rules were about loving my children. And they had to become a little older and a little wiser to get that. What mother actually lets her kid play in the street? What kind of God lets us destroy ourselves? My rules weren't perfect. God's are. And He is. Now that I have a few gray hairs (possibly, I keep my hair blond, so maybe I do), my desire to obey my God is born of my relationship with Him. Not only do I seek to please Him, but I understand more every day how my boundaries enrich my life. No more giving in to wanton cravings...in fact, I hope no more wildernesses. I've been thirsty and hungry as a result of No!. May my response be ever Yes! to the One Who loves me enough to slap my hand once in a while in order to save my life. And Yes! to the Spirit of God Whose indwelling presence in me helps me keep the law in a way the wandering Israelites couldn't have imagined.
There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Romans 8
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