Tag Archives: Affections & Motivations

Gospel Centrality, Growth/Pursuit

Law doesn’t inspire the heart

““You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth. For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the LORD your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him” (Deuteronomy 11:18–22 ESV)

The way to avoid our hearts from wandering is to lay up the words of God in our hearts and souls, teaching them to our children and placing practical reminders around us.  This isn’t just the law (or a moral checklist) because the law, on its own, does not inspire the heart.  God is after a heartfelt love for Him.  This has to also include the constant, persistent recalling of God’s goodness, faithfulness & provision to an undeserving people (you & me).  This is a major theme in Deuteronomy – Moses continually unpacks the majestic power & greatness of God and the Israelite’s rebellion & hard heartedness. He anticipates that they will be prone to rob God of His glory by attributing the abundance in their lives to something else – and they did.  We do the same thing today.

Perhaps, we should follow the pattern of intentionally recalling God’s goodness, faithfulness & provision to us despite our persistent hard heartedness toward Him.  We need constant reminding that we are not deserving, but objects of His mercy – not because of anything that we did or will do.  He chose us because He is gracious and is working good, not because we did/do good.

Gospel Centrality, Growth/Pursuit

I Believe…

This excerpt from a post last January from John Piper is a good way to start the new year of right!  Enjoy!

I believe I am so spiritually corrupt and prideful and rebellious that I would never have come to faith in Jesus without God’s merciful, sovereign victory over the last vestiges of my rebellion. (1 Corinthians 2:14; Ephesians 2:1–4; Romans 8:7).

 

I believe that God chose me to be his child before the foundation of the world, on the basis of nothing in me, foreknown or otherwise. (Ephesians 1:4–6; Acts 13:48; Romans 8:29–30; 11:5–7)

 

I believe Christ died as a substitute for sinners to provide a bona fide offer of salvation to all people, and that he had an invincible design in his death to obtain his chosen bride, namely, the assembly of all believers, whose names were eternally written in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain. (John 3:16; John 10:15; Ephesians 5:25; Revelation 13:8)

 

When I was dead in my trespasses, and blind to the beauty of Christ, God made me alive, opened the eyes of my heart, granted me to believe, and united me to Jesus, with all the benefits of forgiveness and justification and eternal life. (Ephesians 2:4–5; 2 Corinthians 4:6; Philippians 2:29; Ephesians 2:8–9; Acts 16:14; Ephesians 1:7; Philippians 3:9)

 

I am eternally secure not mainly because of anything I did in the past, but decisively because God is faithful to complete the work he began—to sustain my faith, and to keep me from apostasy, and to hold me back from sin that leads to death. (1 Corinthians 1:8–9; 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24; Philippians 1:6; 1 Peter 1:5; Jude 1:25; John 10:28–29; 1 John 5:16)

Growth/Pursuit

The outward expression of an inward reality

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“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:5–9 ESV)

The laws, statues & commandments of Deuteronomy 6-11 should be viewed as the outward expression of the ultimate command:  to love God with all of your heart, soul & strength.  Obedience to the commands demonstrated that the people loved God.  The law was not given to save.  In the same way, we should strive to obey out of love rather than duty or obligation.  Jesus said the same thing – if you love me, you will obey what I command (John 14:15).  This is not a way of earning Jesus’ blessing – this is an increasingly natural outflow of a heart that has a growing love for God.  “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”” (John 14:21 ESV)

Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 in Matthew 22:37-38, Mark 12:30, and Luke 10:27 and summarizes it by saying that to love God is the great and first commandment (Matthew 22:38).  The thought is completed by indicating that this is not some cognitive, head knowledge, but is to penetrate all the way to the heart.  We are to love God with every fiber of our being – all of our obedience was designed to flow out of a heart that loves God.  The work is to love God and the scripture addresses this from different angles – abide in Christ (John 15), our work is one of belief (John 6:29), as we behold Him we become more like Him (2 Corinthians 3:18).  These are ways in which we grow in our love for God.  Loving God is not produced by our hard fought, white knuckled discipline – it is a Spirit wrought, utterly dependent, monergistic endeavor that glorifies God because we can’t produce it on our own.  Loving God involves our begging Him to produce in us that which we can not produce on our own.

God’s requirement for a heart that fully loves Him is seen throughout Deuteronomy as it is looking forward to a day when God will write His laws on the hearts of His people and they will worship Him with their new hearts (Jeremiah 31:31-34, Ezekiel 36:25-27, Romans 2:25-29, 8:14; Galatians 5:16, 18, 25; Colossians 2:11; Hebrews 7:18-19, 8:8-12, 9:9, 14 (purify our conscience), 10:1, 15-18, 10:22 (draw near with a true heart); Deuteronomy 6:5, 10:16, 29:4, 30:6-8).  Jesus fulfills this promise as He makes our dead hearts alive to God – He regenerates us.  We are not only to have these commands on our own hearts, but are to teach our children and those around us the same thing.  This is the foundation of discipleship.  Many of the Jews did this externally, but missed it internally.  How often do we pass down a code of moral conduct to our children that is void of a passionate love for God?  The thing(s) that we love, we talk about.  What do you love, really?

Growth/Pursuit

The awe of the Almighty

“Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!” (Deuteronomy 5:29 ESV).

God knows the open rebellion that His people (and all people) will continue to walk in and the cost to buy back this rebellious lot.  The awe of the Almighty should leave an imprint on our souls that we fear and revere Him.  There should be a  growing awareness of the chasm between the eternally, holy, transcendent Creator and us which produces awe, admiration, reverence and obedience that flows out of a place of gratitude that He would make a way for us, not that He will “get us” if we don’t obey.  Please reveal your glory so that we may fear and follow.

Growth/Pursuit

I worship what I want

“‘And you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. And you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.’” (Deuteronomy 5:21 ESV).

Coveting is a deep-seated longing to possess something that is not yours.  Purity of heart is in focus here because to covet your neighbor’s wife is to lust after her – to want her instead of whom you are in a covenant relationship with (see here).  Likewise to desire what your neighbor has as better than what you have is the first step towards breaking the 8th commandment of not stealing (here).

God is after the heart (Matthew 5:21-30) and always has been!  When we covet something else, we bring it in to our hearts and tell ourselves, “if only I had this then life would be worth living, I would be happy, fulfilled, significant or worthwhile.”  This comes back to the first commandment of not having any other gods before the one true God.  Coveting leads to idolatry which leads to all sorts of behavioral problems because what is in our heart is what drives our thoughts, motivations, emotions and actions; we are defiled not because of what we put into us, but because of what comes out of us (Mark 7:20-23).  Whatever is on the throne of our heart is what we worship.

Growth/Pursuit

Lying perverts justice

‘And you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” (Deuteronomy 5:20 ESV)

What seems to be in view here is to intentionally lie in a legal setting so as to meaningfully cause your neighbor harm.  Lying perverts justice and is not an accurate reflector of who God is and how He operates, which is one of our primary callings as His image bearers.  When we lie, we are saying to all of creation, “this is what God is like.”  We have such a proclivity towards using our words in destructive and hurtful ways.  Even “small, white lies,” can cause harm.

The call here is to live a truthful life.  We need help with this because we are so driven by the approval of others that we frequently “bend” the truth in order to present ourselves in a more favorable light.  We need to rest in the truth that we are accepted by God because of the perfectly lived life of Christ so we no longer need to be driven by the opinions of others.  It’s simple, but certainly not easy!

Gospel Centrality, Growth/Pursuit

Remember

““Do not say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to possess this land,’”
“Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land”
“Know, therefore, that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people. Remember and do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness.”
(Deuteronomy 9:4-7 ESV)

The people are called to go into an intimidating land and conquer it – a land that is populated with those who are greater & mightier with fortified cities.  This is why they didn’t go into the land the first time – the spies (except Joshua & Caleb) said that the people were too mighty for Israel to over throw (Numbers 13:28-14:10).  The Israelites are reminded that these people were indeed mighty and their cities were fortified, but their God was mightier!

God then issues a warning to the people: “Do not say in your heart, ‘it is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to possess this land” (verse 4, also 8:17).  They would have viewed their military victories as God rewarding them for their righteousness; God completely obliterates that thinking.  God reminds them that they were the recipients of His grace – unearned, undeserved, unmerited.  They were not receiving the land because they followed or obeyed well enough, trusted deeply enough or were more spiritually attuned.  No!  They were being given the land because of God’s righteousness, glory and grace (see verses 5-7).

We are not much different than the Israelites.  We tend to believe that the good things in our lives are the result of our obedience, intelligence or hard work.  We think that God is our cosmic genie who is obligated to reward us; He owes us.  Nothing could be further from the truth that the bible paints for us.  The goodness in our lives is not because we are awesome & obedient; the goodness in our lives is because God is gracious – we deserve nothing, but wrath because of our (ongoing) rebellion.  All good things are a gift as Paul affirms in 1 Corinthians 4:7: “what do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?”  We are owed nothing, not even breath – everything is a gift from on high, it is not because you unlocked the secret spiritual code, executed better than others, worked harder, were wiser or did something on your own to deserve the good that you have.  God’s grace is the reason that you have any good things.

It seems like we are hard wired to take credit for the good in our lives and forget the grace of God.  So how do keep the right perspective that it is God who benevolently gives us good because He is gracious, not because we are deserving?  The answer is to REMEMBER.  Deuteronomy 8:18 tells us to “remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth” and 9:7 tells us to “remember and do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness.”  The people were called to remember their moral failures and disobedience in the wilderness to crush their self righteous pride.

You are called to remember that God delivered you, led you, provided for you, loved you – even in your rebellion.  You were dead in your trespasses, but God, being rich in mercy, made you alive (Ephesians 2:4–5).  You did not do anything to deserve it, you didn’t earn it, it is only by His benevolent grace that He made your heart alive to spiritual things.

Remembering involves deliberate, dependent discipline.  There is indeed action on our part.  Our role is to get ourselves in proximity to the waterfall of God’s grace and beg Him to ignite our hearts.  The Spirit ignites the kindling that we gather around us.  So let us work at gathering kindling and get ourselves in close proximity to the Almighty and beg Him to ignite our souls.

Depravity, Gospel Centrality, Growth/Pursuit

Moses the Mediator

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“And you said, ‘Behold, the LORD our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire. This day we have seen God speak with man, and man still live. Now therefore why should we die? For this great fire will consume us. If we hear the voice of the LORD our God any more, we shall die. For who is there of all flesh, that has heard the voice of the living God speaking out of the midst of fire as we have, and has still lived? Go near and hear all that the LORD our God will say, and speak to us all that the LORD our God will speak to you, and we will hear and do it.’” (Deuteronomy 5:24–27 ESV)

In verse 27, the people request a mediator because they feared the glory of the Lord; their reverence & fear is appropriate because man does not get to speak with the Almighty and live, unless He is merciful.  The glory was too great for their souls to bear, this is reminiscent of Isaiah’s experience in the temple when he was struck with fear at the presence of the Lord (Isaiah 6:1-7).  Most people lack this awe of the Almighty today.  The people feared the voice of the Lord so greatly that that were content to have Moses listen to God and relay the message.  It is ironic that they were so moved with fear of the living God then they quickly left Him and complained against Him as if He were like the impotent idols of Egypt.

God deems their assessment as true and right (v28), but the Sovereign, who is out side of time, laments:  “Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!” (Deuteronomy 5:29 ESV).  He knows the open rebellion that His people (and all people) will continue to walk in and the cost to buy back this rebellious lot.

God obliges the people and gives Moses His laws.  The purpose of the law was to reflect His perfection, to restrain sinful behavior in the community, to reveal our sinful hearts and to point us to the perfect Fulfiller of the law.  “You shall walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess.”  God calls them to obey and He will protect & prosper them.  Ultimately, we know, the people could not obey.  Thankfully, Someone has obeyed on our behalf.  (Deuteronomy 5:33 ESV).

Moses is a picture of the perfect Mediator (Hebrews 9:15 & 12:24) that was to come – One who would stand between us and a holy & perfect God to resolve the conflict the existed due to our openly rebellious hearts.  We are not worthy, but He set His saving affections upon us anyway.  This Mediator not just intercedes on your behalf, but He also gives you His perfect obedience to law so you can stop striving.  The proclamation of the cross is “it is finished.”

Belief, Growth/Pursuit

Angry hearts aren’t free hearts

‘You shall not murder.” (Deuteronomy 5:17 ESV).

This is the immoral, careless killing of another (murder), but also includes the death of another because of negligence or carelessness (manslaughter).  This verb is never used when describing killing in war so apparently there is a distinction.  The bible prohibits murder because we are image bearers (Genesis 1:26–27; 9:6); we have special status as being reflectors of God’s glory in a unique way.  So murder is, in a way, an attack on God.

The polar opposite of murder (fueled by hate) is love as highlighted in Leviticus 19:17-18:  ““You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”

Loving our neighbor is repeated in the New Testament by Jesus, Paul & James:

  • Matthew 22:37–40:  “And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.””
  • Romans 13:9:  “For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
  • Galatians 5:14:  “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word:  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”
  • James 2:8:  “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well.”

Jesus’ teaching on this in the Sermon on the Mount gets to the real heart of the problem:  anger.  ““You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:21–24 ESV).  If you are angry, then your heart is not free.  Jesus knows that if He gets our hearts under control then our actions will follow.  He is restoring His image within us so that we actually are becoming more human (as God designed us to be).  We can’t kill anger any more than we can produce love on our own – we need outside assistance!  Let us place ourselves in proximity to God’s grace by our spiritual disciplines and let us plead with Him to change our hearts, motivations & affections.

Gospel Centrality

The intent behind the law

Commandments 6-8 (murder, adultery & theft) are about living in a fair, just and covenantal community.  “The sixth through eighth commandments present general prohibitions not to murder (5:13), commit adultery (5:14), or steal (5:15). In doing so, they set minimum standards for Israel to be a just society and indicate the context in which the people will be called further to be holy and to love the Lord with their all their heart, soul, and might (Deut. 6:4–9), and their neighbors with goodwill and generosity (Lev. 19:18). Thus, while the prohibition against stealing is a basic principle of justice in Israel’s national life, the people are called to do more than refrain from taking another person’s possessions. They are to embody the Lord’s love for them by loving the stranger and sojourner as themselves (Lev. 19:33–34). When Jesus refers to the law in the Sermon on the Mount (“you have heard that it was said,” Matt. 5:21ff.), he is correcting not the intended purpose of the OT law but the mistaken presumption that these laws (or their interpretation) were meant to be exhaustive of what it meant to live as a child of the kingdom of heaven. (E.g., as Jesus made clear, simply refraining from murder does not fulfill the law when a person disdains his brother as a fool; or simply refraining from adultery does not fulfill the law when a man lusts after a woman; see Matt. 5:21–24, 27–28; and note on Matt. 5:21–48.).”  From the ESV Study Bible.