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SEPTEMBER 29, 2011
LOVING AND OBEYING
He who obeys instructions guards his life, but he who is contemptuous of his ways will die. (Proverbs 19:16, NIV)
Yesterday we considered how the love we have for God is the best inspiration for righteous habits that please Him.
Of course, this means that we do well to advance our love for Him, a process that includes studying Him (reading what
Scripture tells us about Him), spending time with Him (meditating and reflecting on who He is and what He reveals to us), and conversing with Him (by keeping the prayer lines open between us and Him).
From a similar viewpoint, we may say that those who love God’s instructions find themselves in the best position
to obey what they say.
Perhaps we should be careful when using the word “instructions” to refer to the precepts of
God. Instructions sometimes runs closer to suggestions in the mind of those who like to modify or tinker!
But the instructions of God are something else altogether. Many of the Old Testament laws may have seemed as random to
the people who first received them as they do to us. The dietary laws, for instance, appear arbitrary at points—this animal you may eat, but not that one. And yet, as scientists have come to know
more about what foods are best for our bodies, there are indeed some creatures better consumed with great moderation or not at all. That is, God knew nutrition before the nutritionists (but of course).
And so the instructions of God are best regarded as laws or commands, because God is not haphazard in His love for us,
and thus He is well-ordered in His leading.
It is good then for us to become like the venerated adherents to God’s law in Psalm 1 or Psalm 119. These
God-followers “delight in the law of the Lord” (1:2) and “find comfort in them” (119:52). They meditate on these laws “day and night” (1:2) and hide His word in their
heart (119:11). We do well to study God’s law, meditate on it, and openly converse with Him about how we might live it out. This truth endures for those who know Jesus and follow His at-the-core
creed: love God, love others.
A golfer who sees a significant need for improvement in one area of her game will sometimes set aside her practice of
most other parts of her game to spend concentrated time for a week or two, perhaps, to shore up that weakness. What if we set aside our relentless reading programs and hours of listening to sermons on
every wide topic and homed in on Jesus’ creed? What if we sat for long minutes on end in the quiet hours of the day and truly thought about God and life and what it would mean to love Him through
it? What if we considered God and others and what we might do to love them as Jesus would love them? This is the kind of care for the instructions of God that leads us to love them. And this is the kind
of love for His instructions that leads us to obey them that we might guard our lives.
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Jeff Hopper
September 29, 2011
Copyright © 2011 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
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