Proverbs 6:20-21. 20My son, keep your father’s commandment, and forsake not your mother’s teaching. 21Bind them on your heart always; tie them around your neck.
Do you own any special necklaces or chains that you wear around your neck? Often when something is special to someone or when they don’t want to lose something they will tie it around their neck as a necklace. Or sometimes it’s as simple as wearing a lanyard around your neck to identify who you are or what group you are with.
The proverb tells us that children are to treat the commandment of their father and the teaching of their mother with great honor and respect. Like a necklace of great value that hangs over the heart identifying who you are, the instructions of godly parents must never be forsaken.
Maybe you didn’t have godly parents. Perhaps you didn’t grow up with biblical instruction either. Dear Christian remember that God himself is parenting you in Christ. Yahweh is both father and mother to you, teaching you his ways and giving you everything you need for life and for godliness.
Jesus is God the Son who kept all of his Father’s commandments and followed all of his Father’s teachings. He never wandered from the truth, never strayed from righteousness and justice. The will and the ways of God were tied around his neck and bound to his heart. In Christ, we are now the sons of God with him. All that is Christ’s is ours to share, including his perfect record of obedience to our Heavenly Father. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us through our union with him.
This isn’t only a “forensic righteousness,” as theologians call it, a declared righteousness apart from actual, lived out righteousness. In Christ, we are both declared to be righteous by our union with the Son of Righteousness, and we are also able to participate actively in Christ’s righteousness too. We are able to bind the law of love to our hearts. Our new, Spirit controlled hearts. Listen to how Paul explains it:
Romans 6:17-19. 17But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, 18and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 19I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
Obedient from the heart. Slaves of righteousness. Present your members (bodies) to righteousness.
This sure doesn’t sound like “forensic righteousness” or positional righteousness alone. God’s will is bound to our hearts, tied to our necks. Yes, we are righteous, set free from sin, but we can also live righteously. Do you believe this?
When we trust our new deeper affection for Christ, when we know how loved we are, and that we can love as we are loved, then we are binding the commandment of God to our heart. As we meditate on Christ’s loving sacrifice for us on the cross, we are tying his teaching around our neck.
You: What is bound to your heart? What messaging are you listening to? Is it the Father’s?
You in Christ: Do you trust your new heart? Have you been able to go deeper, past surface temptations, to your desire for Christ?
Christ in you: How can you keep the love of Christ for you on the cross “around your neck” today?
Pray: Father, by your grace keep your law of love bound to my heart. Help me to know I am loved and to love like I am known. Amen.
To Live is Christ 