God and His Law Are Spiritual

One of the three-fold persons of God is the Holy Spirit. Jesus said that the power would be sent after he returned to the Father. It came as the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

Man is the only creation that included the breathing of God into him to bring life. That is because we are both spirit and flesh creations. It’s the spirit side that yearns for connection to God. It is the spirit side that knows how to truly worship God.

John 4:23-24 NLT:  “But the time is coming and is already here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for anyone who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth."

In the prior post about God and His Law being good, I discussed the war of flesh against God because we all have sinned. We have a spirit striving to do what is right, but the flesh is a pleasure seeker. God said His Law would be imprinted on our hearts and it is the Holy Spirit that directs us to it. Thus, the Law has a spiritual component.

Rom 7:14 NKJV:  For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.

Romans 7 is a great chapter to read about how we battle with sin. The above verse was included in the passage I used to show the Law as good and how it can work in us. Without the proper discernment of the Holy Spirit we would never learn right from wrong. We would not realize we can’t perform truly good acts without God’s help via the Holy Spirit. God gives us the power and the covering to be good and align our spiritual side to Him. Without proper discernment, we will miss the fact that doing good things for the wrong motives, for ourselves instead of God, could hurt us and others.

Rom 8:16 NKJV:  The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Another way to look at this is in the NLT:  For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we are God's children.

We can’t earn anything from God, but we can have it all if we accept His Word about Himself and His Law. With Him we can be properly aligned spiritually and have the power to do truly good acts. If you are not feeling at peace within yourself, maybe your spirit is missing God.

God and His Law Are Good

Nahum 1:7-8 NLT:  The LORD is good. When trouble comes, he is a strong refuge. And he knows everyone who trusts in him. 8 But he sweeps away his enemies in an overwhelming flood. He pursues his foes into the darkness of night.

Luke 18:19 NKJV:  So Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.

I can see how the fear of God can lean the wrong way. He is definitely good and we fall short of that. Most of us have done something that hurts another whether physically, verbally, or even just in our minds. Yes, even thinking it might as well be doing it with God. We run from God because we think we’ll get what we deserve instead of His love. But if we go to Him knowing who He is and trusting in that, He will know us. If we don’t go to Him in trust or stay away entirely, we get counted as one of His enemies. His goodness will not allow Him to brush over the bad, but a repentant heart will be covered with His love and goodness.

We need all the help we can get. Man is not naturally good. If we were naturally good we wouldn’t need all these rules to teach us what not to do. We would not need enforcement to keep the law because everyone would be following it. God has lined up a way for us to get help. Because of man’s original sin, He gave us a good law to know good and bad. This in turn makes us realize where we fall short and should make us run back to Him for help. If you have accepted Jesus Christ into your life and are trusting in Him, then you have the Holy Spirit guiding you through life.

Rom 7:11-17 NLT:  Sin took advantage of the law and fooled me; it took the good law and used it to make me guilty of death. 12 But still, the law itself is holy and right and good. 13 But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my doom? Of course not! Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God's good commandment for its own evil purposes. 14 The law is good, then. The trouble is not with the law but with me, because I am sold into slavery, with sin as my master. 15 I don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. 16 I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience shows that I agree that the law is good. 17 But I can't help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things.

1 Tim 1:8-11 NLT:  We know these laws are good when they are used as God intended. 9 But they were not made for people who do what is right. They are for people who are disobedient and rebellious, who are ungodly and sinful, who consider nothing sacred and defile what is holy, who murder their father or mother or other people. 10 These laws are for people who are sexually immoral, for homosexuals and slave traders, for liars and oath breakers, and for those who do anything else that contradicts the right teaching 11 that comes from the glorious Good News entrusted to me by our blessed God.

Notice all sins, bad things, are lumped together without distinction of which is worse. All of them are sins and separate us from God, making us His enemies. Whose guidance are you going to follow:  the twisted, veneer encased words of Satan twisting God’s law so you feel good about yourself no matter what or the good law that will make you right with God and at peace with yourself by repenting? 

Pure

'Can a mortal be just and upright before God? Can a person be pure before the Creator?' Job 4:17 NLT

This is a great question because we find in our own power we fall short every time. Even Paul, who wrote plenty of letters to the churches, noted he found he would do things he did not want to and did not always do what he wanted. Our flesh and spirit are at war. Without the power and guidance left to us when Jesus returned to heaven, we would not be able to overcome.

So how can we be considered pure?

1 John 3:2-6 NLT

Yes, dear friends, we are already God's children, and we can't even imagine what we will be like when Christ returns. But we do know that when he comes we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. 3 And all who believe this will keep themselves pure, just as Christ is pure. 4 Those who sin are opposed to the law of God, for all sin opposes the law of God. 5 And you know that Jesus came to take away our sins, for there is no sin in him. 6 So if we continue to live in him, we won't sin either. But those who keep on sinning have never known him or understood who he is.

It isn’t easy to go without sinning. Our nature is quite selfish and we want things our way. We get upset even by people rudely cutting us off in traffic, cutting in line at a store, or stealing the parking spot we were waiting for during the Christmas rush. None of these are worth even an ounce of wasted energy and emotion. But truly we are creatures of flesh that unless we learn who Jesus is and then be adopted into His family, we may never know how truly bad this is.

Jesus tells us to love our enemies. I found this nigh on impossible before becoming a Christian. It is because I did not understand love other than in a selfish way. I did not have a pure idea of what love really was. Our reactions to all in the world are to show love, even if it may be tough love at times to correct them. We can’t do that if we don’t understand we are to be like Jesus, who is pure in how He loved us and reacted to all of us to the point of dying on the cross.

2 Peter 1:3 NLT

As we know Jesus better, his divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life. He has called us to receive his own glory and goodness!

Psalm 19:7-11 NLT

The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The decrees of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. 8 The commandments of the LORD are right, bringing joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are clear, giving insight to life. 9 Reverence for the LORD is pure, lasting forever. The laws of the LORD are true; each one is fair. 10 They are more desirable than gold, even the finest gold. They are sweeter than honey, even honey dripping from the comb. 11 They are a warning to those who hear them; there is great reward for those who obey them. 12 How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults. 13 Keep me from deliberate sins! Don't let them control me. Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin.

We should be understanding and react to our sins like the writer of the above psalm. A repentant heart goes a long way to becoming right with God because He can then teach us how to use His Law and shine His love on the world. How is your light shining?

Truth

Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. (John 14:6 NLT). This truth causes the most stumbling because man wants more than one way to heaven. We think we can earn it by being good people and that doing good things can erase the bad we do. However, there can only be one true way to heaven and Jesus is saying He is the way. We must go through Christ to get to the Father. Nothing we can do will ever change that due to God being eternal and never changing.

We have already studied that God is perfect and everything He creates is perfect. Man on the other hand can change and can make choices that are not perfect or even sinful against God. We should choose God because He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. (Deut 32:4 KJV) He must be angry with sin, but he is a fair God. He is a God of truth and will not transgress against His Law. He must hand out punishment against sin because it is wrong. He would not be a good or proper judge if He let things slide.

The following two verses continue with showing how His justice and truth exist in His Law:

·         Psalm 119:142 NLT - Your justice is eternal, and your law is perfectly true.

·         Ps 119:151 NKJV - You are near, O LORD, and all Your commandments are truth.

God knows we can never earn a righteous standing with Him. He sent Jesus to the cross as the sacrifice that would cover the punishment due to the sins of the world. If we accept Jesus and take Him at His word, we will have the way back to God. We will be covered by His righteousness and have our sins removed.

Anything you have done that breaks God’s Law, His commandments, is a sin you must repent of. Without repentance there is no true acceptance of Christ. We all have fallen short. Will you check yourself today against God’s truths and accept Christ? If you have accepted Him, are you still trying to reach God another way? We all must repent of our wrong doing and reach out to Jesus to find the way home to God.

Eternal

The following verses tell that God and the Law are eternal, but explain how this relates to us and why it should matter.

Rom 16:26 NLT says, But now as the prophets foretold and as the eternal God has commanded, this message is made known to all Gentiles everywhere, so that they might believe and obey Christ. Jesus was prophesied about multiple times hundreds of years before He was born. The message was to be to all people because God so loved the world. He knew what would happen before He created the world, but here we are with a gracious gift from Him through Jesus for all people.

Being eternal He could have decided to totally end it multiple ways, but someone got to survive to continue on. Why? Go back to our discussion on love. God has a love beyond our finite comprehension and wants all of us to come to Him and be reconciled to Him as His children. Deut 33:27 NLT: The eternal God is your refuge, and his everlasting arms are under you. He thrusts out the enemy before you; it is he who cries, 'Destroy them!' Like any good father He wants to protect us from the enemy that will only give us momentary thrills. Only through Jesus can we have an eternal peace and loving relationship with God. Everything else we run to for a refuge will prove temporal.

Many believe that the Law is gone and we only need to know Jesus. However, if we love Jesus we will obey his commandments, which include the Ten Commandments. The first two both deal with love and are the most important. You need to first be connected with God to acquire His grace and power to overcome, and then you will be able to know love as He does and obey the rest of the commandments with ease.

Luke 16:16-17 NLT, "Until John the Baptist began to preach, the laws of Moses and the messages of the prophets were your guides. But now the Good News of the Kingdom of God is preached, and eager multitudes are forcing their way in.  17 But that doesn't mean that the law has lost its force in even the smallest point. It is stronger and more permanent than heaven and earth.” So the Law is not the guide to a Christian for the Holy Spirit was given for that. However, the Law is still standing firm as it always has. It’s still here as our moral compass and can be used by the Holy Spirit to point out things we need to work on as a Christian that helps us get even closer to God and live fully as He intended. It is there as a tool that can be used by Christians to help the world understand why they need Jesus in the first place.

Ps 111:7-8 NLT: All he does is just and good, and all his commandments are trustworthy. 8 They are forever true, to be obeyed faithfully and with integrity.

God never changes. His ideas of good and evil as laid out in the commandments are never going to change. However, He did change how we are to reconcile with Him through Jesus Christ. The Law was never meant to save anyone, but to teach us all the right way to live. On our own we do not have the power to do this, so our loving Father in Heaven sent Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice to give us the way back. We can never earn this on our own power.

I prefer to stand with an eternal God who loves me so much that He wants to be sure I can connect to Him and know how to live a good life. Where do you want to stand knowing eternity waits with two options: with God or without God?

(Verses in italics)