BEAUTIFUL LAW

I'm reading in Deuteronomy right now.

Used to, when I reached Deuteronomy, I thought, "Thank goodness - almost to Joshua! Soon, these tedious books will be past and I'll finally be into the good stuff!" Joshua is so exciting, so much easier to read than Leviticus or Numbers or Deuteronomy.

Except that during my current read through Scripture, those first several "tedious" books are, amazingly, no longer tedious.

They are amazing.

This morning I was reading about the Law, the Ten Commandments, and something struck me in a new way. Over and over again, as God was communicating His Law to His people, He said, "because I love you." And, in essence, all of God's commands can be summoned up in the charge for His people to respond to His love for them in the only appropriate way: God says to His people, "Love Me!"

From beginning to end, as God speaks His Law to His people, His language is bathed in, saturated with, dripping with love. Suddenly, the Law is not a law at all - it is a gift. It is a love song.

Suddenly, my response to God's Law is not a feeling of being burdened or guilty or weary - but an overwhelming sense of the goodness of God and of His great, unfathomable love for me.

Used to, when I read through the Ten Commandments, I was impressed mostly with my own inadequacy, my complete inability to conform to God's holy Law. Such a response is appropriate, but my focusing on my inadequacy is stopping short of the beauty of what God has spoken.

My inadequacy pales into insignificance when it stands alongside the greatness and the goodness and the faithfulness of God's love for His people, including me.

Once again, darkness is swallowed up in ineffable light.