Rules Don't Cut It

Jeremiah 31:33"This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD . "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people."
We can’t please God by keeping a set of rules.
One of my favorite games is Monopoly. I love buying property, charging rent and wiping out my opponents. This game is played by a strict and complicated set of rules. Throughout several hours of play, I frequently have to check the lid of the box for minor details of the rules, mostly to make sure my opponents are not cheating as they systematically empty my money pile.
During Old Testament times, God required the Jews to relate to him by keeping a very complicated set of rules. The Ten Commandments summarized how they were to love and worship God and how they were to treat each other. However, the precise details of how they were to keep those laws make up the whole book of Leviticus and much of Numbers and Exodus as well. Talk about rules! Maybe that’s one of the reasons the Israelites repeatedly failed to obey God.
They broke God’s Law so often and so blatantly that he finally caused the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar to conquer them and force them to live in his land for seventy years. God’s judgment was so intense that He even allowed the Babylonians to destroy the Temple, the building that had been center of Jewish worship for over 400 years.
During the years when Nebuchadnezzar was attacking Judah, Jeremiah explained that their failure to keep God’s laws was the reason they were being beaten and taken captive. But, Jeremiah also emphasized God’s promise that he would eventually make it possible for them to keep his laws. He would write his standards of worship and behavior on their hearts so that they would be able to obey them.
That’s exactly what he has done for every person who places his trust in Christ for salvation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” That means that we Christians actually have a new, redeemed and holy nature because of Christ’s work in our hearts. We can keep God’s laws because we have been given a godly heart.
As we spend time reading God’s word and talking to him in prayer every day, we will understand more clearly what actions and attitudes please him. We will discover the power of the Holy Spirit who lives inside us to help us obey God. We will obey God’s laws because we want to. All of this happens because God writes his laws upon our hearts.
Today’s Prayer:
Thank you, God, for giving me a new, clean heart that wants to please you. Please teach me every day how I can keep you laws from the heart. Thank you for the Holy Spirit who convicts me when I disobey your and gives me the spiritual strength to correct my attitudes and actions. Amen.
Written by Martha E Menne, Flagstaff Arizona