Aspiring to obey the laws of God

Every Christian loves the laws of God, and aspires to obey them.

So then we all can relate to the Jewish Pharisees who delighted in and understood and upheld the laws of God when they were consistently befuddled by Jesus, "the friend of sinners and tax collectors." His fellowship with them had the appearance of making sport of the laws of God. But the real event here was that God found that those who truly loved Him were those who acknowledged they needed Him to help. They became obedient by means of their love and therefore by means of their wretchedness. Case in point: the sinner woman who cried on the feet of Jesus.

The book of Isaiah shows that our God has always been a Lord of the underdogs.

Maybe that is why in our walk with God there has to be an endless supply of fodder for Him to be soberly appraising the evil nature (our sins) within us, because without it we would not call on the Lord after salvation, feeling superior as if we had arrived, and we would never pursue nor rely upon abiding with the Lord spiritually. This is the exact weakness of the Galatian church. They think, as all Christians have at some point, as I struggle myself everyday to not be tempted, that they don’t need Christ anymore. That somehow they can attain their goals by their own effort because their flesh is obedient after salvation. But as Paul said in the end of chapter two, “If righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

We do not have it in us, to obey God! Only God, in us, can obey the Lord.

Like the Galatian church who was troubled by accusations from other believers of being incomplete and unfit for fellowship by faith alone because of the greatness and scandal of their sins, we need to protect our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus from accusations even within our own conscience:

"If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies." rom 8:31-33

"You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace." 5:4

That’s me! I want to be found measured well by the ten commandments. Everyone feels this way, and some people will go to faithless means seeking to “establish their own righteousness” (rom 10:3) by including law's deeds as stepstones of confidence to believe we are becoming like Christ.

2 cor 12:7-10 says: ““To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

It is God's very best for us to have a thick weakness of being unwilling/incapable of doing the good we delight to learn about.