God's Statutes And Laws in Your Heart

"4And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; 5Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws." (Genesis 26: 4-5)

Over the past few days, you have been reading about how Abraham was obedient to God.

He did not obey God by keeping the Ten Commandments, for they had not yet been given.

He also lied about his wife, twice, just to save himself. His wife was his half-sister, which God commanded as an abomination.

He also took his nephew Lot with him, when God had directed him to leave his kindred as well as his country.

He doubted God many times, yet God was good to Abraham not because Abraham was a good, but because he believed the Lord:

"And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness." (Genesis 15: 6)

It's all about righteousness,  which we receive by faith, not by works:

"For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith." (Romans 4: 13)

This righteousness we receive and keep receiving as a gift, not something that we earn, but rest and receive:

"For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." (Romans 5: 17)

This righteousness is defined as a gift, and cannot be received in any other fashion:

"No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD." (Isaiah 54: 17)

and

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Corinthians 5: 21)

This righteousness is not ours, but His. We must understand this, or we do not grow:

"For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe." (Hebrews 5: 13)

"Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;" (Hebrews 12: 15)

With this righteousness comes God's capacity to write His statutes and laws in our hearts:

"

10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)

 

Wonderful!