Psalm 37:31

Psalm 37:31

The Law in our hearts

We are still thinking about the righteous and David writes something here in this verse that is always attributed to Jeremiah by preachers and commentators of the Bible. “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Jeremiah 31:33 (repeated in Hebrews 8:10). It’s good to know that our friend and companion, King David, first penned the spiritual insight that those who are truly righteous will have the law of God in their hearts. David lived in an age when men and women learned the law from a young age, they obeyed the law for fear of the consequences of disobedience. The Jewish law was to become the bedrock of the nation but it was simply intellectual and religious. The law David speaks of here, that Jeremiah prophesied, is a law that is obeyed out of love, respect and a desire to be like Christ. You and I are not called to be bound by law, we are free from it. We cannot please God by rule-making and religious ceremony or by intellectual assent to moral creeds. The law that is written on hearts is the work of the Holy Spirit alone and it is the consequence of a desire to be more like Christ. Those who obey out of love and devotion will not falter or slip in their spiritual walk. Those who seek to obey out of self-discipline are doomed to constant failure. Would you rather obey your dad because he is a stern and punitive taskmaster or because you love him so much that you want to be like him and because you know that He forgives your transgressions?

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