#DailyDevotion Obedience To The Will Of God Is Freedom

October 24th
Read Deut 25:17—26:19
Deu 26:16-19 “This day the LORD your God commands you to do these statutes and rules. You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul. (17) You have declared today that the LORD is your God, and that you will walk in his ways, and keep his statutes and his commandments and his rules, and will obey his voice. (18) And the LORD has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments, (19) and that he will set you in praise and in fame and in honor high above all nations that he has made, and that you shall be a people holy to the LORD your God, as he promised.”

Some people, perverted people may see this as bondage. In fact it is freedom. The Lord God had freed His people not only from the Egyptians but from the world and the ways of the world. The ways of the world is bondage to self and bondage to Satan. He had called the Israelites out of the world to be His Holy People. The commandments, statutes and rules were there to lift up the Israelites from the people around them as how they should live their lives as well.

But these rules, commandments and statutes are only beneficial when they are done with trust in the one who called them out of darkness. Otherwise they are become like the elemental principles of the world which the pagans follow. Tit for tat, karma, an eye for an eye is the way of the world.

Paul writes to us, Gal 5:1 “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” And again he says, Gal 5:13-14 “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. (14) For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Jesus has freed us not from Egypt but from sin, the fear of death and the one who has the power of death, the devil.

But this freedom has not been given us that we may throw ourselves back into slavery to sin again. We have been freed to serve God, the Lord, and our Lord Jesus Christ with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. We do that by loving our neighbor which is the fulfillment of the Law. We are free from the Mosaic law with all its rules, commands and regulations. We are also now free to fear, love and trust in God above all things, to trust in Christ Jesus, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. There isn’t a whole lot of minutia of how to live our lives or how to love our neighbor in the New Testament. There are a whole lot of things described in the New Testament in what loving our neighbor is like and not like. But that is where our old perverted flesh takes offense. It wants to sin because it is bound to sin. It conducts itself according to karma on a good day and as if it doesn’t exist on another. But Christians are called to a different life where our sins are forgiven us, guilt is taken away, our shame is nailed to a cross and God calls Himself our Father on account of the work of someone else, His Son, Jesus Christ. It is only as we believe this that we live in the freedom of loving God and loving our neighbor, just because.

Lord Jesus Christ, help us live in the freedom you have gained for us in your calling us to be your people. Amen.