October 28, 2011 … The Law Devastates the Sinner

Romans 7: 9 – 11 [highlight verse in bold/underlined] … 7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.

My Journal for Today: Again we look at the effect God’s Law has on our dealings with sin. And The Law not only REVEALS and even AROUSES sin in mankind (see my last two devotional entries); but when man is really able to look into God’s mirror of truth (i.e., God’s Law), sin DEVASTATES US with the realization that we are utterly incapable of living up to the Law’s demands for righteousness. The lies of the master of deceit (Satan) and the condition of our deceit-ridden hearts (see Jer. 17: 9) would have us perceive that our good works could or would make us blameless. Paul once saw himself in this way (see Phil. 3: 16); and the Apostle recognized that his own deceitful heart gave him the tendency to be blind to his own sin. That’s why he wrote with such conviction about his own sinful condition in the passage with which we all probably identify - Romans 7: 14 – 24.

Unfortunately today many, as did Paul when he was Saul of Tarsus, fall prey to Satan’s con-game, leading the lost, and even some Christians, to believe the lie that our good works can satisfy God’s Holy Law. However, anyone who is really able to look honestly at The Law, will realize their need of a Savior (see Rom. 5: 6 – 8). And Jesus (see Matt. 9: 12) said that it is not the healthy who needs a doctor; … it is the sick. And most certainly The Law is a devastating tool for God’s diagnosis of our sickness of sin.

So, as you read this, as I have meditated writing it, you (and I) must decide where we stand with regard to satisfying God’s Law. Just because we live now under the dispensation of grace, i.e., under the New Covenant, it doesn’t mean that God’s Law is null and void in its demands. It still is our mirror of Holiness, revealing the horror of our human weakness to sin. Have we been conned by Satan’s lies and his world to think that our good works will usher us into Heaven? Or do we see that trusting in Christ, i.e., being in total surrender to His truth, is our only way to be justified when we stand before a Holy God and His Holy Law.

I pray that the latter is our response to God’s call for holiness from His Law; and that you, like the writer of this entry, have found salvation, and are in pursuit of our ongoing sanctification, … in Christ.

My Prayer Today: I am saved unto Your Law, Lord, … only in You. Amen