Old Testament God of Love

I don’t care for legalism. We will never be good enough to deserve heaven. We can only make it thru the merits of the blood of Jesus. However, God said:

Joh 14:15 - If ye love me, keep my commandments.

Joh 14:21 - He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

Joh 15:10 - If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.

1Jo 5:2 - By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.

1Jo 5:3 - For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

2Jo 1:6 - And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it.

Although I can’t keep His commandments by my own power, He will give me the power to overcome. I’ve seen it in my own life and in the lives of others. I look at the law of God and it calls me to a higher standard and I want to be continually growing in grace and becoming more and more like Jesus. His commandments are not grievous. The more I am abiding in Him, the more joy and peace I have and the more I hate it when I break His commandments. And besides, why shouldn’t I want to keep them? Every rule or law in the Bible is summed up in the 10 commandments. All the other rules and regulations just flesh out and give more understanding of what is contained in the tablets of stone.

“Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.” – why would I want to have any other gods before Him. He is the only one who can save me, so I want to get rid of anything in my life that is more important than God.

“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” – wow, this one is powerful, He shows mercy to those who love Him and keep His commandments. Notice how love for God is tied up in commandment keeping?

“Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” – God will punish those who take His name in vain. To me this means so much more than just not cursing, it means even more that if I claim to be a Christian and yet do things that dishonor God, I am taking His name in vain.

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” – this one is actually my favorite. I find it so awesome, that the Creator of the universe wants to spend time with me. I can rest in the assurance of His creative power and His sanctifying power. I can rest in Him. I can rest from trying to work my way to heaven, because “He is able to save to the uttermost all who come to Him.” (Heb 7:25). That is why I worship on the Sabbath day and keep it holy. I want to spend time with my Creator and my Savior. I don’t want the distractions of the world to separate me from Him. If I’m not willing to spend 24 hours a week in the company of my Lord and Savior, then He certainly isn’t a top priority with me.

If you want to call these legalism, you certainly can, most people find the first 4 commandments legalism while wanting to have the last 6 in place. I don’t find it legalism, I find the first 4 to be a call to make God number one in my life and that is what I’m trying to do. I want to spend an eternity with Him in heaven and if I don’t want to spend time with Him on earth, how in the world will I ever want to spend all that time with Him in the New Earth?

As I’ve mentioned before, I love reading and telling Bible stories. I especially love the Old Testament stories because they show how willing God is to hear and answer prayers and to work mightily for His people. Many people don’t like the God of the Old Testament. They think He is a blood thirsty, angry God. When, in fact, nothing is further from the truth. God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, He never changes, He can’t change. But people do the stupidest things and reject Him over and over. That is one of the reasons I love the Old Testament so much. No matter how many times His people rejected Him, worshiped idols, destroyed His temple, did what they wanted, He always answered when they called.

Every Sunday I read at least one book of the Bible, that way I can get thru the whole thing in one year (I read 2 or 3 books if they are small). Today’s book was 1 Chronicles which is kind of a hard book to get thru. There are chapters and chapters of so and so was the son of so and so. Or lists of the priests, or doorkeepers. Names I can’t pronounce and can never remember. But among all those hard things were some amazing little stories.

There were so many today, that it was hard to choose just one to meditate on, which is what I do. But one passage really spoke to me:

1 Chronicles 5:18 The sons of Reuben, and the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh, of valiant men, men able to bear buckler and sword, and to shoot with bow, and skilful in war, were four and forty thousand seven hundred and threescore, that went out to the war. 19 And they made war with the Hagarites, with Jetur, and Nephish, and Nodab. 20 And they were helped against them, and the Hagarites were delivered into their hand, and all that were with them: for they cried to God in the battle, and he was intreated of them; because they put their trust in him. 21 And they took away their cattle; of their camels fifty thousand, and of sheep two hundred and fifty thousand, and of asses two thousand, and of men an hundred thousand. 22 For there fell down many slain, because the war was of God. And they dwelt in their steads until the captivity.”

I just loved that. Even though these people had rejected God and turned away so many times. Yet here they were, about to go into battle, and they cried out to the Lord and He heard them. Because they trusted in Him He went out and won the battle for them.

To me that is such an amazing promise. No matter what we’ve done, where we’ve been, God will still fight any of our battles for us if we just trust Him enough to ask Him to. He can’t get involved as much as He’d like because He doesn’t have our permission.

One day in Sabbath School we were discussing how hard it would be to be God. One of the students said that it wouldn’t be hard at all, because God can do anything He wants to do. Then I asked her to imagine that she was babysitting her little cousins. She told them not to play in the road, but they insisted on playing there. Suddenly, she sees this huge truck barreling down the road toward them. She can’t get them out of the road or touch them in any way unless she has their permission. So she yells, and cries and warns them, “Look out, get out of the way, a TRUCK IS COMING.” But they ignore her and continue playing. Maybe they think that she’ll break her own rule and get them out of the way. Maybe they just don’t notice the truck. But, they never get out and the truck hits them.

I asked her how she’d feel in that case. She said, “Terrible.” And that’s how God feels every day billions of times a day. He can’t do for us what we don’t allow Him too. He gave us His word in the Bible; He gave us His Son, Jesus. He has sent prophets, He has given His Son to die; He has done everything He can, and yet, most of the world still totally ignores Him.

I think it would be terrible to be God. I just pray every day that I will not ignore His warnings; and every day I thank Him for continuing to try to get my attention and for loving me so much.

He loves you too, and I hope and pray that you will allow Him to get you out of the way of the big truck that is barreling down on all of us.