Read Exodus 20:1-17
Have you ever stood in front of a window and watched people undress and become intimate? You have if you call the pane on your television a window. Think of that steamy scene in Titanic when DiCaprio and Winslet are in that old car. You watched it all (or scenes like that in other movies). Identifying you as a voyeur is only the beginning of this examination! Jesus said lusting after someone you are not married to makes you guilty of adultery (Matthew 5:28). That is not all: Jesus equates anger towards another with murder (Matthew 5:22)! Defining the law like this, we are all guilty of breaking every commandment! And just in case someone imagines an exception, this verse adds the slam dunk: "For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it." James 2:10
God does not grade on a curve, but pass/fail. But you must know that God did not give the Law to condemn you. God gave the Law to serve as a distress signal: an S.O.S.—not Save Our Ship, but the Law Shows Our Sin. When trying to live by God's standard (let alone our own), we fail. The Law works like a mirror to reveal who we are apart from God. And just as drowning people cannot be saved until they give up their own attempts, the Law prepares us to receive a Savior. This isn't the only reason God gave us the Law, but it is the most important.
Please notice in today's Scripture that the Law was given to God's people after he rescued them from slavery in Egypt. God did not give the Law as a condition for his rescue, but as a result. We do not obey God's commands so that he will love us, but because God loves us.
Have you ever stood in front of a window and watched people undress and become intimate? You have if you call the pane on your television a window. Think of that steamy scene in Titanic when DiCaprio and Winslet are in that old car. You watched it all (or scenes like that in other movies). Identifying you as a voyeur is only the beginning of this examination! Jesus said lusting after someone you are not married to makes you guilty of adultery (Matthew 5:28). That is not all: Jesus equates anger towards another with murder (Matthew 5:22)! Defining the law like this, we are all guilty of breaking every commandment! And just in case someone imagines an exception, this verse adds the slam dunk: "For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it." James 2:10
God does not grade on a curve, but pass/fail. But you must know that God did not give the Law to condemn you. God gave the Law to serve as a distress signal: an S.O.S.—not Save Our Ship, but the Law Shows Our Sin. When trying to live by God's standard (let alone our own), we fail. The Law works like a mirror to reveal who we are apart from God. And just as drowning people cannot be saved until they give up their own attempts, the Law prepares us to receive a Savior. This isn't the only reason God gave us the Law, but it is the most important.
Please notice in today's Scripture that the Law was given to God's people after he rescued them from slavery in Egypt. God did not give the Law as a condition for his rescue, but as a result. We do not obey God's commands so that he will love us, but because God loves us.