Whoever keeps the commandment keeps his life; he who despises his ways will die.
The law of God sets a heavy burden upon mankind in his natural state, a burden unregenerate man refuses to live up to (Ps. 53:1-3). The Christian has a little easier time; he recognizes that the law was to him a chastener, an alert of damnation and a goad to repentance. But still we chafe beneath the load too often. We ask ourselves how God can require this of mankind. We ask ourselves if a less thorough command would not be more suited to life. We get up in the morning, sin, and sigh. I did it again. Then we ask why we should worry about that stuff anyway.
The pat answer (and the true and the most important) is that we worry about the law because God commands us to. But that doesn’t answer the fatigue real well, not the three hundredth time.
The second answer, the fuller version of the first, has more weight. We live according to His law because it is how we love Him (Rom. 13:8; Deut. 6:4-5). He loved us, so we love Him (1 John 4:19). The law is the path of right relationship with him. From gratitude, from love, from desire to walk in harmony with our Lord and Savior, from all of these we find the will to walk forward in His law, oft-falling and ever raised anew by His strength (Hab. 3:17-19).
But we grow tired. God gives us a time of darkness and waiting. We sin, and His light seems ever more distant. We forget that relationships aren’t all one-way, forget that our eyes of flesh see a bare fraction of the story, forget that now is only a step towards the future. We want an excuse to avoid the law; we say, ‘Why should I worry about this? I’d be much happier sinning in peace, then go up to heaven at the end, all spick-and-span, justified and made perfect.
The problem with that thought process is how thoroughly it forgets the consequences of sin. Sin is pleasurable for a moment, at times, and sin is addicting, promoting more of itself, but sin is innately destructive. God warns us in this proverb: life in His law, death by despising it. The most extreme example of this is the damnation worked by those who despise the covenant emplaced at creation, as contrasted to the eternal life wrought by His righteousness imputed to us (Rom. 6:1-7). But the law brings blessings to us even in this life, even in our current lives, however much smaller they are than eternal life. Sin, of course, strips those blessings, makes the best into a curse and the whole into memory.
Nor does sin stay confined. If I sin, particularly if I hold on to that sin, not repenting or taking steps to turn from it completely, I bring ruination to all the rest of my life, however spotless my behavior therein (and, let’s be honest, it’s not going to be spotless). Haggai 2:10-19 tells us this quite clearly.
In Haggai 2:10-19, the prophet, by the Lord’s will, reminds his audience first of how ritual holiness was not transmitted willy-nilly on contact and second of how ritual uncleanness had communicated to everything it neared. Then Haggai declares, “So is it with this people, and with this nation before me, declares the Lord, and so with every work of their hands” (v14). Because of a grave sin at their center—their slackness regarding the rebuilding of the Temple, in anticipation of Christ (Heb. 6:4)—the whole of their work was blighted: “I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and with hail, yet you did not turn to me, declares the Lord” (v18).
But in that same passage, in verse 18 itself, God gives the remedy: return to Him. Turn to the Lord once more (Is. 55:6-7). Repent: abhor sin and love righteousness. In the law He gives life and joy and blessings both spiritual and physical (even if both of these He at times withdraws for His purposes (Job 38-42), the better to lead us (Rom. 8:28; Eph. 5:25-27). Let us follow it, and rejoice in Him.
God bless.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
Colson Potter writes copious fiction and nonfiction, including a weekly Proverbs post and his blog at Creational Story.
