Thoughts in Worship

Message Magazine's Online Devotional for Thursday, August 3, 2017

Audio Link: https://www.spreaker.com/user/reachmanyradio/thoughts-in-worship-08-03-2017

This is devotional thought number 41 in our devotional series, “Essentials of Faith.” Our subject is: The New Me

Here’s the question for consideration: What, if anything, do the Ten Commandments have to do with my conversion?

“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:3–5).

Let me tell you a little secret: Jesus kept the commandments. And guess what else: we must too.

I’m going to be abrupt here, so I hope you are ready. The devil wants you to shun, truncate, abbreviate, marginalize, and minimize the commandments that YHWH emblazoned upon two tables of sapphire stone on Mt. Sinai, and renewed on the fleshy tables of our hearts in the new covenant/testament era. The devil wants you to shun, truncate, abbreviate, marginalize, and minimize the commandments that Paul called holy, just, and good. The devil wants you to shun, truncate, abbreviate, marginalize, and minimize the commandments that Jesus came to fulfil. Do you realize that Jesus would not have needed to die for our sins, which are the transgression of the law, if He was going to abridge it? What sense would that make? Why would there be a penalty for capital murder if the law of the land could be abrogated the moment someone committed capital murder? Despite what many religious and irreligious folks say, God’s commandments are not grievous. Jesus lived in perfect harmony with the Father and His law, which afforded us the blessing of His power for us to do the same.

John, the one who wrote of God’s love more than any other Bible writer, makes it abundantly clear that God loves us so much that He gave Jesus to be our Substitute. John taught that the Holy Spirit is ready, willing, and available to convict us of sin and judgment so we can understand ourselves and God. Having learned more about self and God, we learn to go into His presence for forgiveness and fortitude to do His will. This same John is the one that said, more than once, that if we love God, we will keep His commandments. John taught that we need not fear the judgment when we are perfected in love. These principles coexist in the life of the believer. They are not antagonistic to one another. The same one who loves God is empowered to keep His Word.

History records that when the church lost it’s way prior to the Protestant Reformation, the religious oppressors who led the church decided to abridge God’s law. They attempted to erase the command to worship God only without idols. They attempted to efface the holy seventh-day Sabbath. As if that were not enough, they chained the Word of God to the desk and hid it from the common people. With God’s law and the complete Word hidden from the minds of the people it was possible to fool them into spending all of their money to satisfy the greedy urges of their so-called leaders. Society had degraded so much during those days that eventually the entire Bible was outlawed in the late 1790s in France. Innocent blood ran in the streets like water. Crimes and evil of the most heinous sort continued. Innovation came to a complete halt. Marriage was reduced to a mere civil enactment, rather than the holy institution God created in Eden. Men like Huss, Wycliffe, Luther, Jerome, Wesley, Knox, Tyndale, Calvin, Zwingle, and countless others stood firm upon God’s Word prior to and following these dark days.

Are you...