The Law of God
Morally Practical and Practically Moral
The law of God is not only moral but practical—the two are inextricably entwined. In an ultimate sense, you cannot have something that is morally good while being practically bad or vice versa. We live in God’s world, and in God’s world, good is always good and bad is always bad. You can’t get around the way things are, the way God made them to be.
God communicates to us in His law—His commands, His precepts, His judgements—not only what is morally right but what is practically best. What looks to be at first like a cold and bitter rulebook is actually a warm and sweet guidebook. You need not look any further than the first of the Psalms to see the stark contrast between the righteously obedient and the wickedly disobedient, to see the blessing on those who keep His word and the opposite on those who don’t.
“Obedience” has such a negative connotation and, quite honestly, for good reason, because it is so often tied to faulty masters—faulty husbands, faulty governments, and so on. Because of this, we can hardly imagine the delight of obeying a perfect Master, a perfect Master who does not merely want what’s best for us but knows what’s best for us, a perfect Master who loves us with His perfect love.
Individuals and societies alike flourish when they actually, truly, wholeheartedly obey His law. It does not start with anything grand. It starts with simply obeying the first word of Jesus’ first preaching: “Repent.” Repent of your disobedience up till this point and know that you’ve just exercised obedience’s first order of business; it may have been your first, but to walk in this way, it certainly won’t be your last. Repentance is obedience’s match, which continually reignites us after sin has snuffed out our flame. After which we can start small, prayerfully tending to our daily life be it our home or our work or our private affairs and loving those who are right in front of us, for this is where a man and his life are made. And with that, assuredly, blessing awaits.