Today’s Scripture: Psalm 19:8

“The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.”

My son visited a country in which automobile drivers are undisciplined and “free spirited.” He saw cars stopped at a railroad crossing for a passing train. Instead of lining up behind one another to cross in their proper turn, several cars lined up across the entire road. Each driver wanted to be first to cross when the crossing guard was raised. But when the train had passed, cars were also lined up completely across the road on the other side of the tracks. “Freedom” quickly turned to chaos!

That kind of thing happens in a much more serious way when we insist on unqualified freedom from God’s law. We have indeed been set free from the bondage and curse that results from breaking the law. And we’ve been called to freedom from works as a means of obtaining any merit with God. But we haven’t been called to freedom from the law as an expression of God’s will for our daily living.

Paul said, “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,” and “I myself serve the law of God with my mind” (Romans 7:22,25). A few verses earlier he had characterized God’s law as “holy and righteous and good” (verse 12). It seems inconceivable that Paul would want to be free, or urge others to be free, from what was holy, righteous, and good—that in which he himself delighted.

God’s law is not opposed to grace, nor is it an enemy of grace. Neither is the law of God opposed to us as we seek to live by grace. Out of a grateful response to God’s grace, we seek to understand his will and to obey him, not to be blessed but because we have been blessed.

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