Friday, September 29, 2006

Is the Torah for Today - Part 14

Under the New Covenant, the Torah (the directives of God) dwell in our hearts. That is because the God of the Torah himself dwells there. Obeying God is not something we strive after, but rather something we live out. At the same time, living out a life of obedience is not automatic. We need to learn to cooperate with the reality of God in our hearts. We do this by getting to know God through prayer, the Scriptures, and the fellowship of other believers.

If God truly dwells in us it may seem illogical that we would need to learn to obey him. We may be tempted to think that we need to do such things as turn off our minds so that God can flow through us. The less we get involved in the process, the better, so to speak. But this conclusion disregards that God's desire is that we become more like him as his children. This includes a learning and decision-making process. We are not designed to be machines, but sons and daughters of God who need to mature in godliness.

Having the Torah in our hearts is a major step in our maturing process with God, but it's still only the beginning of the overall process of conforming us to his likeness. Our own desires, our thinking, our decision making, and so on all need to actively become one with his. God calls us to participate in this. He wants it to be genuinely us.

So as we get to know God, we discover what godliness really is. As we do, if the Spirit of God truly dwells in us, then we long to be godly, doing everything he wants us to do.

This includes discerning how to apply his directives in our own day. Next time (after this week's TorahByte message) we are going to look at a biblical example of this.

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