Law-abiding citizen

You must have found yourself reading the old testament and wondering about all the laws. You even said a silent prayer thanking God you were not born then. No one could have survived it. No one is that righteous, not even the Pope or the late Nelson Mandela. The main purpose of the law was to show us that we could not serve God with our own power and strength. Our righteousnesses are as filthy rags before him. Isaiah 64:6

Isaiah with all his righteousness, realized how dirty he was before God. Isaiah 6:1-5

Why did God need to show us that we couldn't do anything including serving and pleasing Him without His help? Because we initially tried to do without Him. We tried to do without a relationship with Him. We told Him in Exodus to tell us what to do and we would do it, that He should give us laws to follow and we would follow everyone of them (exodus 19:8). We didn't want a direct relationship with Him, we just wanted a mediator like Moses who would speak to Him on our behalf and we would do what He asked (exodus 19: 18-19

But when you break one law, you have  broken all the laws and are liable to die.

Nadab and abihu dropped dead immediately after their consecration. They lit strange fire that the Lord asked them not to (leviticus 10:1-2).You would have thought God would have had mercy. But they were already bound by the law.  They lived by the law and thus were bound by it.

In the beginning, God's initial and original plan for creation was revealed in genesis. Everything that existed before the law is not bound by the law.

Man could eat anything. When the law was introduced,  whole sets of instructions and rules to follow were given. 

Man couldnt cope and kept dying for breaking the law. God just wanted us to know that we were not capable without Him. We do not exist outside of Him.

We are saved by grace. The law was abolished when Jesus came and died on the cross as an atonement for our sins. John 1:17 Romans 6:14

Now that the law is no more, we Christians need to learn what God was trying to teach the Israelites. That we can't serve Him by trying to observe certain rules and regulations. That His strength is made perfect in our weakness.

That we should lean on Him totally. Let go and let God.

This is the dispensation of grace.

Yet it is not by power or by might but by His spirit that we can lean on Him.

I have asked the Lord to show me how to surrender. So many times, I have tried to be a Christian by too much human power and effort. The first thing to do is realize that without Him, you can do nothing. John 15:5

When you realize that, then you begin to depend on Him completely and walk in grace.

May we learn to surrender ourselves to His grace and let it work its perfect work in our lives. It is time to stop struggling and trying so hard to please God by obeying a set of rules. It is only possible to please God with faith, no matter how little.

Let us ask for grace to live right and be pleasing to Him. Amen.