Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

The law of the heart

Saturday, February 23, 2002

Deuteronomy 26:16-19
The Lord your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and laws; carefully observe them with all your heart and with all your soul.
You have declared this day that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in his ways, that you will keep his decrees, commands and laws, and that you will obey him.
And the Lord has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession as he promised, and that you are to keep all his commands.
He has declared that he will set you in praise,
fame and honor high above all the nations he has made and that you will be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised.

In a "theocracy" God makes the laws and he is the ruler. Israel didn't have a human king until the people insisted on having one, hundreds of years after Moses wrote Deuteronomy. They had judges and priests, who interpreted and enforced the law God gave them.

"These decrees and laws..." just those written in the book of Deuteronomy (without verse and chapter headings) consist of 40+ pages, 15,665 words, more than a thousand separate laws.

That might seem like a lot unless you're an attorney or a law student. How many words do you think are in those beautifully bound law books? The Uniform Commercial Code is one of 77 Illinois acts dealing with banks and real estate. There are 13 articles in the Uniform Commercial Code. The first 1 ½ of those 13 articles contain 16,388 words. A little (probably not quite accurate) extrapolation puts the word count of laws relating just to banks and real estate at 16 million, four hundred and four thousand, three hundred and eighty eight.

I guess you could say those laws relate to the seventh and ninth commandments. Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet. How many words have we written into law about the other eight?

God seems to say what he wants to say clearly and succinctly, and then he's done. Just looking through any chapter of Deuteronomy, though, I have question after question for the author. No wonder the judges were so busy. (And still are.)

Jesus "did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it" (Matt 5:17). What that means to me, Paul says in Romans, is that "a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known; it comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe" (Rom 3:21).

And so I need to be asked the question, " 'Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!?' ... Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence" (Col 2:20).

Living life legalistically is the surest way I know to kill joy and stifle God's spirit in me. Jesus cut through the thousands (in our case millions) of words with "love the Lord with all your heart and soul and mind ... and love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt 22:36).

My favorite wedding Bible passage is not 1 Corinthians 13, but Colossians 3:12-13. " As God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you." That is the law of the heart. Jesus fulfills the law, replaces it with simple words that call everything I think, everything I do, into a simple question.

Am I loving?

God, let my "yes" be yes, and my "no" be no. Let my response to your question be as simple and true and straightforward as the question is itself.

Devotions Archive

The law of the heart

Saturday, February 23, 2002