Proverbs 7:2. keep my commandments and live;
Sometimes our obedience is a matter of life and death, isn’t it? When you were little you held dad’s hand while crossing the street or you listened to mom when she told you to chew your food before swallowing. As an adult you read warning labels and obey traffic laws in order to stay alive.
That’s what God’s commandments do too – they keep us alive. Not just physically, but also spiritually. When God gives us a commands and asks us to be wise and “fear them,” respect them, obey them, he is offering life to us. The good life. God knows what we need in order to live a good life, and his commands offer to us what we need.
Do you believe this?
Death, of course, comes from disobedience to God’s commands. The wage of sin is death, scripture says. Physical death and spiritual death, or separation from God. How does a person avoid death and find life instead? Keep all of God’s commandments, of course.
Leviticus 18:5. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the LORD.
At this point, hopefully you are aware of the hopelessness of this equation. No one can keep God’s commandments and live. No one but Jesus that is. And that’s what he did. Christ fulfilled Leviticus 18:5. Christ was the wise son of Proverbs 7. Yet, he died anyway. He kept the Father’s commandments and died. On a cruel cross no less. Why? You know the answer – for us! And you know what happened next. Christ arose. His obedience to the commands of the Father made his life indestructible. In righteousness, he was vindicated and raised from the dead to everlasting life.
And now Christ, the commandment keeper, has given us a new command. Believe. Simply believe. And then let that trust in him overflow as love to others as the fruit of that belief. Yesterday we looked at how the Apostle John says it in 1 John:
1 John 3:23-24. 23And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.
Two commandments. Believe. Love.
Believe: the cause of eternal life.
Love: the proof of eternal life.
This is the good life promised to us by God when we are in Christ. The life of faith and the life of love. A divine love poured into us by the indwelling Holy Spirit of love. A life of obedience from the heart of faith. A new heart with a new source of life – Christ in us, the hope of glory.
You: Have you discovered the hopelessness of trying to keep God’s commandments apart from faith in Christ?
You in Christ: How is simply trusting Christ also faithful obedience to God’s command?
Christ in you: What might Christ’s love for others specifically look like in your life today?
Pray: Father, I trust in you. I believe in Christ. Help me to obey you and love others as Christ. That’s the good life! Amen.
To Live is Christ 