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Curses and Blessings - Part 3 - Because We Want To

by Jerry Ousley  
6/14/2013 / Christian Living

I would like to relate a story that I heard some years ago. It seems there was this lady who had married a man who was very insistent that things be done just right. He wanted his dinner served a special way and at the same time each evening. He wanted his clothes to be cleaned, folded and put away exactly to his exact specification. He wanted the house to be spotless and insisted that his wife clean each and every day. As time passed this woman grew to hate her husband. She couldn't stand the rigid routine on which he was so bent on enforcing.

After a few years her husband died. Sometime after that she met a wonderful man and got married again. This man was the exact opposite of her first husband. He allowed her to do things any way she wanted. He didn't care how things were done and she was deeply in love with him. She felt that she was like a caged bird now freed at last and that she had the opportunity to soar high.

One day, as she was putting her husband's clothing away it suddenly dawned on her that she was folding and placing them the way her first husband had insisted. Upon realizing this she was ashamed and angered that she was still doing things his way. But then, she realized that she was no longer doing them because she had too, but she was doing them for her new husband because she loved him and she wanted to. It made all the difference in the world.

We've compared the scriptures as found in Deuteronomy 27:14-26 which pronounce curses upon the law breakers, and Matthew 5:1-12 where Jesus pronounced blessings upon those who sought after Him. We could very well be compared to the woman in this story. You see, the law insisted that the only way we could be righteous before God was to completely and perfectly fulfill the law. No one except Jesus Christ was able to do that. God had not given the law to make it impossible for man to be righteous, but mainly to show mankind how much he needed a savior. We were cursed for breaking the law and man grew to hate it.

On the other hand, Jesus becomes our second husband. He has made us free in Him. He lifts the curses of breaking the law and pronounces blessings to those who come to Him for salvation. That's exciting isn't it?

Many insist yet today that Christians must fulfill the law. They are not unlike our Jewish fore-fathers who insisted that the Gentile Christians also fulfill the law as part of their salvation. But Jesus came to free us from it.

Jesus fulfilled the law in our place. Does this nullify the Ten Commandments? Does it mean that we don't have to be subject to the law any longer? At the risk of being misunderstood, I'm going to answer that question with a resounding "YES!" I say yes because Jesus gave us a new set of laws. They are the laws of love. In Matthew 22 Jesus said in answer to the question, "which of the laws are the greatest?" that we should first love God with all our heart, soul and mind. Then He said that the second was that we love our neighbor as ourselves. In verse 40 He concluded with, "On these hang all the law and the prophets." In other words, if we love God first with everything in us and everything we are, then love our fellow man as much as we love ourselves, then all the other laws fall under this. Jesus said this because He knew that we would find out just what most believers soon discover after being freed from the law. We discover that if we are following the laws of love as spoken by Jesus Christ, that often we are keeping the law not because we have to but because we want to. The law is no longer a requirement to be righteous before God. Jesus Christ has become our righteousness. Only by accepting the sacrifice of His shed blood can we be worthy to be righteous enough to stand before God.

Consequently we are no longer bound by the law. But as we express our love for God and our fellow man, we will find that much of the law has become dear to us, not because we are forced to embrace it, but now because we want to do the things that please God and that makes all the difference!

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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