Check the Law

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

CHECK THE LAW

Rom 3:19-20

19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

NIV,                          

We are going to get to one of those famous verses very soon which tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but before we get there and enjoy the rest of what Paul says after that, we need to see the use and the usefulness of the law. We know that God gave Israel the law to show them they could not find righteousness by observing the law, however, they made the law more than God intended it to be. It almost seems as though they worshipped the law rather than God, although they professed their worship of God, and it is their worship of God that is the reason they tried to be obedient to the law. Yet they were blinded by their efforts to be obedient to the law from the truth in the law and the words of the prophets. Everything God did for them was to point them to the moment in time when he would send his Son to redeem them, to be their Messiah, their Savior. The purpose of the law is so they would be conscious of their sin. The fact is no one can be one hundred percent obedient to the law and therefore any failure is a sin that sin cannot be forgiven under the law. Paul is going to lead them to the righteousness that comes from God, but in the meantime, we have to consider if we are adapting any of the theology of the Jews. That is have we created a law unto ourselves that we want to observe in an effort to find righteousness? We know that because we love the Lord and want to please him, we have denominationally as well as personally developed a set of rules to live by based on our interpretation of the scriptures in order to show that we are living a holy and righteous life. It seems that we are pleased with ourselves for doing so many “Good works” and in fact, we want others to notice our good deeds. We have even heard a pastor in another church we attended enumerate all the good deeds of the church in the community whenever a local village leader visited. Does not the word of God declare that pride comes before the fall? We cannot afford to be prideful about anything we do out of our love for God. We cannot and should not try to find any kind of spiritual welfare from observing our established rules and regulations for a holy life. We are aware the just will live by faith and it is our faith that gives us the right to be children of God because of His grace. John is clear that to those of us that believe in the name of Jesus, he gave us the right to become children of God. This has nothing to do with being obedient to any law, or any rules or regulations, but totally through faith that we are saved. Yet it is true we cannot go on sinning that God’s grace can increase. We must make some changes in our lives, the largest is to love the Lord our God with all our being, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. If we live a life of love, then everything else will fall into place, and it is one thing we know for sure, is that love cannot be legislated through any form of law. If we try to live according to any set rules for Christian living, we will only find that we will fail, and failure is a sin and thus we need a Savior. The only way to life is through faith and not by work. Yes, works may follow faith, but works do not produce faith. Let us live a life of faith followed by a life of love.