July.27.04: Light for the Day - "God's Law"

-- Psalms 19:7
The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul.
The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.

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The Bible is the constitution of Christianity.
The Bible is not of any private interpretation.
The Bible includes all who live under its stated domain, without exception.

God's Laws for the spiritual world are found in the Bible. Whatever else there may be that tells us of God, it is more clearly told in the Bible.

Nature in her laws tells us of God, but the message is not clear.
It tells us nothing of the love and grace of God.

Conscience, in our inmost being, does tell us of God, but the message is fragmentary.

The only place we can find a clear, unmistakable message is in the World of God, which we call the Bible.

Prayer:
How I pray that the world would live by Your law - which bears no discrimination but is perfect. Teach me as I read the Bible to follow Your commandments - which are not impossible to obey because of Jesus Christ's love.

-- Billy Graham

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-- 1 Timothy 1:8
We know that the law is good if one uses it properly.

-- Psalm 1:1-3
1 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

-- Romans 2:12-15
12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.
13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
14 Even when Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, stinctively follow what the law says, they show that in their hearts they know right from wrong.
15 They demonstrate that God’s law is written within them, for their own consciences either accuse them or tell them they are doing what is right.

-- Romans 7:14-25
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.
17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. {Or <my flesh>} For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do— this I keep on doing.
20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law;
23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
25 Thanks be to God— through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

-- Romans 8:1,2
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, { Some later manuscripts <Jesus, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit,>}
2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

-- Galatians 2:16,19
16 know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.
19 For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.

-- Galatians 3:23-25
23 Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed.
24 So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ {Or <charge until Christ came>} that we might be justified by faith.
25 Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

-- Psalms 40:8
I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart."

-- Psalms 119:97
Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.

-- Matthew 5:18
I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.