July 20, 2017
God’s Realm of Amazing Grace
O Lord, listen to my
cry;
give me the discerning mind you promised.
Listen to my prayer;
rescue me as you promised.
Psalm 119:169-170
Good News: For freedom Christ has
set us free.
Bad News: For freedom Christ has
set us free.
I know that seems a bit
confusing, but I think you will soon see my point. First, let’s look at the structure
of Psalm 119. “This psalm is a Hebrew acrostic poem; there are twenty-two
stanzas, one for each successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Each of the
eight verses within each stanza begins with the Hebrew letter named in its
heading.” (Footnote 119:1 NLT) There are 176 verses in this psalm and at least
176 times the psalmist refers to God’s law, instructions, commandments,
decrees, regulations etc.
While much of the redundancy in
the psalm is due to the form of the poem the psalmist chose, I believe his
motivation is revealed in verse 45: “I
will walk in freedom, for I have devoted myself to your commandments.” This
is indeed a noble pursuit for the psalmist; however, it is a futile pursuit.
The Apostle Paul, in Romans
7:21-25, is most eloquent when he describes our futile struggle to please God
by keeping the law. The Good News is that Jesus has ended “the system of law with its commandments and regulations” (Ephesians
2:14-16).
However, this is also Bad News,
because freedom is hard work. It is much easier to have a check list and
measure your progress in obeying the rules. The problem is, from God’s
perspective, we will never adequately obey the rules. This is why He set us
free; but God, while setting us free, did not lower His expectations for us. He
most assuredly wants us to pursue scriptural holiness. However, in God’s grace,
we are not left to try and do this in our own strength. He makes it possible
for us to achieve His good pleasure: “For
God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases
him” (Philippians 2:13). In God’s realm of amazing grace, we have been
freed from having to work to please God, to pursue a new life where God is
personally present with us:
“And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old,
constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of
us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his
face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually
becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like
him” ( 2 Corinthians 3:16-18 The Message).
In our new life, our mission is
to learn to love God’s law, not as something we have to do; but something we
get to do.
“For freedom Christ has set us free.
Stand firm, therefore, and do
not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
Galatians 5:1 (NRSV)
Sē’lah
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(Selah is a word that appears in the
Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my
correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about
these things.)
These
meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his
way of life. The meditations are
published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/
and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may
subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.
Copyright © 2017
by Alex M. Knight
Publications by Alex M. Knight:
·
Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New
Testament and Psalms has been
published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.
·
The second
edition of First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.
·
Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus
Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.
Unless
otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible,
New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House
Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream,
Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
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