Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
“. . . the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.”
David, Psalm 19:8b
We can only be anxious about the future when we do not feel loved by God. When you feel loved by God, you understand the kind of faith that Jesus possessed and that he encouraged us to have when he said, “Be anxious for nothing.” Our heavenly Father owns the future, and there is nothing that can separate us from His love. You are welcome at all times to “cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you.”
Eve’s sense of being loved by God was stolen by the serpent. He did not tell her, “God doesn’t love you”, but the implication of the lie that the serpent told her was that God did not love her, and when she believed the lie he told her, it caused her to doubt God’s love. The effect of the lie was to make her feel that the chief purpose for God’s commandments was to keep her and Adam in bondage. What purpose do you see in God’s commandments?
Before he died, Moses labored to persuade the children of Israel of God’s love. In his farewell address to the nation (the book of Deuteronomy), he repeatedly told them that God had given them commandments so that “it may be well with you, and that you may prosper in the land into which God is leading you.” I have not counted how many times in his last sermon that Moses pointed out God’s loving purpose in giving Israel His commandments, but he said it often, and with much earnestness. Moses loved God’s people as God did.
What would we do without God’s commandments? They are our life, and they are our wisdom if we obey them, just as Moses told Israel (Deut. 4:6). I thank God for telling us not to steal, not to murder, not to covet, and to love Him with all our heart and to love our neighbors as ourselves. With such commandments, God has shown us the way to everlasting life and peace. He could have kept that hidden wisdom to Himself, but He revealed it to us because He loved us. Solomon wrote, “For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light, and reproofs of instruction are the way of life” (Prov. 6:23). “Wherefore,” Paul wrote, “the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good” (Rom. 7:12).
All wise people love the commandments of God and keep them. They know the truth of Solomon’s words, “He that keeps the commandment keeps his own soul” (Prov. 19:16). God’s commandments are the treasures of your life. There is nothing that you can own more valuable than the life-giving commandments of God. Keep them; be jealous for them and guard them as your own life because, in reality, that is exactly what they are.