LEARNING DAILY

 

 

I reversed the reason Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day are remembered.  Veteran’s Day is to remember those who gave their life for our freedom.  Memorial Day is to remember all those who have served in the military to defend our freedom!

 

Matthew 5:17-18, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets.  I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.  For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.”  Jesus

 

The expression “Law or the Prophets” is sometimes used to for the entire Old Testament.  The Lord Jesus Christ did not intend to abolish Old Testament teaching and replace it with something entirely new.  No, He came to see it fulfilled in the life of all who followed Him.  It is important to understand New Testament Believer’s relation to the Law of God.

 

As believers and followers of Jesus Christ we are obligated to keep the moral and ethical principles of the Old Testament as well as what Jesus Christ and the apostles taught.  In the coming days, we will examine some of these principles that Jesus taught in this Sermon.  These principles reveal God’s moral nature and His will for His people.  God does not change in regard to this; therefore, this still applies to us today. 

 

Believers must not view the law as a system of legal commandments by which forgiveness and salvation is earned.  Other religions base salvation on doing good works.  The salvation and forgiveness Christ offers are through His work on the cross of Calvary.  The law needs to be seen as a moral code for those who are already in a saved relationship with the Lord; those who obey it are expressing the life of Christ within them (read Romans 6:15-22).  Obedience as believers is done not only because of a relationship to God as the sovereign Lawgiver but out of relationship of a child to their Father.

 

As was said about the Beatitudes living in this obedience is contrary to human life.  Through faith in Christ, God’s grace, and the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, we are given an inner power to fulfill the law of God.  We fulfill the law as the Holy Spirit helps us to put to death the old nature and to fulfill the will of God (Jesus elaborates on this later in the Sermon).  In other words, we begin to live the way God wants us to because we are being cleansed or transformed within our hearts.

 

Only by being set free from the power of sin through the cross can we fulfill the law of Christ which is to live righteously, to live the way He desires us to live.  The Lord Jesus taught that doing the will of His heavenly Father is an ongoing process and condition to entering the kingdom of heaven.

 

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