It's different when you love him. . .

“For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin” (Romans 7:14 NKJV).

Last week I was at a bridal shower. One of the ladies read an “advice to the bride” item from the 1950's. The women were laughing at such things as, “Prepare yourself for your husband’s arrival home . . . put on a clean dress, tidy up the house . . . meet him at the door.”

Something inside me felt hurt. My husband loves to be met at the door, loves to come home to cleanliness, order, and a happy wife. I’m not always what I should be, but I know that expressing love to him in this way is good for our marriage. I don’t do those things because someone wrote a list of rules, but because I care about him and our relationship.

All of God’s law describes what people would act like if they kept the two major decrees: love Him and love their neighbors as themselves. These are not intended to be a ‘list of rules’ but a revelation of what God knows is important for our lives.

It was also His intention that we keep His law from the heart, not mere outward observance. When I drive the city freeway, do I keep the speed limit because I’m afraid of getting a ticket? Or do I do it because I am a law-abiding person who agrees that this is how fast I should go? Am I watching over my shoulder for a black-and-white? Or happy to drive safely?

The speaker on a recent radio sermon said that the Old Testament laws were about relationship. If a person loved God, they were happy to keep His laws, and did it without strain or resentment. If not, they would resist the law, or simply fake it, like the little boy who sat down as he was ordered, but told his father, “I’m standing up on the inside.”

Jesus said the law was good; our problem becomes clear when we try to obey it. We either cannot, or we make it an external observance. Without a love relationship with God, the law is a burden, an impossible set of rules that no human can keep.

God offers me grace, not so I can forget about law and do what I want, but so I can love Him as He loves me, purely and even sacrificially. Grace also makes it possible to love others, doing what is best for them, even if it costs some time and energy. The law says it, but without grace, I cannot do it.