Read Psalm 147:12-20. 12Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion! 13For he strengthens the bars of your gates; he blesses your children within you. 14He makes peace in your borders; he fills you with the finest of the wheat. 15He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly. 16He gives snow like wool; he scatters frost like ashes. 17He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs; who can stand before his cold? 18He sends out his word, and melts them; he makes his wind blow and the waters flow. 19He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and rules to Israel. 20He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his rules. Praise the Lord!
The psalmist praises God for his creation and his covenant. Neither God’s natural laws nor his covenant laws are in any way arbitrary, impersonal, or detached. Quite the contrary. If the snow and cold are his, the wind and water his personal tools, effortlessly commanded to keep his covenant with all the Earth, how much more do his statutes and rules keep his covenant with Israel?
If the Old Testament shows us anything though it is that statutes and rules have a lousy track record for changing hearts and stirring up obedience. But in Christ there is a greater creation and a greater covenant. A new creation empowered by the New Covenant. God is not just seeking a people to program. He is seeking a nation to love. A peculiar people that will love him back.
Our obedience in and of itself has no value to God. Our hearts are his true desire. God wants Jacobs (deceivers) that transform into Israels (wrestlers with God). And that is what our union with Christ has created. A new heart that not only obeys but wrestles to obey. Not a robot but a relationship.
To live is Christ empowers an ever deepening relationship with God through union with Christ. Christ in us wrestling with our selfish flesh until we cry out for his gracious blessing to never let us go.
Prayer. Jesus, I know you want my heart more than anything. I give it to you knowing that I’ll fail over and over. Keep wrestling with me though. Don’t give up on me. Amen.
To Live is Christ 