Some Devotional Thoughts

"Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law." Proverbs 29:18

Revelation is knowing what God is saying to us through His Word. I think that without knowing or caring what God wants of us we become like the people described in Ephesians 4:17-19, when Paul tells us that we are to no longer walk "as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness..." We certainly do NOT want to live as those who do not know "the life of God"!! It sounds very much like God wants to change our lives so that we are not like the people who don't follow God.

The second part of Proverbs 29:18 gives hope, "happy is he who keeps the law." In James 1:25, we find that knowing God truly and obeying His "rules" from our heart brings liberty -- not to sin, but to give ourselves to God. This is what it says: "But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and contiues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does."

Romans 6:16: "Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaved whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?" From this we learn that whether we are sinning or serving the Lord, we are slaves. But we get to choose who our master is! When sinning we are slaves of Satan, but if we are doing righteousness we are bondservants or "love-slaves" of God.

The next verse, Romans 6:17 shows us an important piece of the puzzle. "But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered." If we are going to obey the doctrine of the Lord, we have to do it from a submissive heart.

"Having been set free from [slavery to] sin, [we can become] slaves of righteousness." (Romans 6:18).

Going back to Proverbs 29:18B, "happy is he that keeps the law," I am reminded of 2 Corinthians 3:6 which reads, "...the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." If we're just obeying rules because we have to, but our heart is not obedient, our spiritually wrong heart is "killed" in the doing thereof. But if we "have been crucified with Christ;" and "it is no longer [we] who live, but Christ lives in [us]," then we can truly have life and pleasure in obedience - knowing Who we are serving -, and "the life which [we] live in the flesh [we] live by faith in the Son of God, who loved [us] and gave Himself for [us]." (Galations 2:20)

Conclusion: Let us therefore, having considered these things, "stor[e] up for [our]selves a good foundation for the time to come, that [we] may lay hold on eternal life." (1 Timothy 6:19)