We Are Family, We Need To Obey

By Ray Gano

A few weeks ago I put out an article titled "Law, Grace and God's Word" (http://tinyurl.com/gano-law-grace). For many it was well received. But there are those out there that once you mention God's Law, they go into massive fits stating that the law does not pertain to them and they are not under the law.

I had one person say "Jesus fulfilled the law and set it aside, nailed it to the Cross, and didn't resurrect it."

Another … " The LAW of CHRIST fulfills the laws of MOSES ! The old testament was in PART !the new testament which is JESUS CHRIST @!Started after He died on the Cross !Refusing to accept this! I feel refuses JESUS CHRIST! and it Not what I say! It what the BIBLE says!"

Jesus is God

What many fail to realize is that Jesus is God.

John 1:1  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:2  The same was in the beginning with God.

John 1:3  All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

John 1:4  In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

John 1:5  And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Just because man created the old and new testament as a means of organizing God's Word, it does not detract from the fact that ALL of the Bible is God breathed, God Inspired, the infallible Word of God.

Paul's instruction to Timothy and to us was to "Preach The Word."

2 Timothy 4:2  Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

Now, the scripture was not canonized at this time, so what "word" was Paul telling Timothy to preach? All that early church could point to was the old testament AKA the Massoretic text which is still in existence today.

Paul also understood that The Word was the complete Word of God, not just the old testament but also the new.

Keep My Commandments

Christ said

John 14:15  If ye love me, keep my commandments.

Again, there was no canonized scripture when Christ said this, only the OT / Massoretic text.

The problem today is that people refuse to submit to the Whole Word of God. People like to pick and choose and I understand that, I do the same thing at times. But more and more God is working within me to change me from the inside out to conform more in the likeness of Him and less in the likeness of the sinful man that I am.

Over the years I have learned that I must submit to the whole word of God, and not just pieces. Why? Because I love Him.

Rules of The Home

Let me ask this. To all of you who have children, do you just let your kids run wild or do you have rules in your home? Do you allow them to do as they please all in the name of love?

Odds are that you do not. In fact you probably have rules in your home not because you are trying to be some ogre putting your children under the thumb, but because you love them and wish to keep them safe from all the evil this world has in it.

It is the same way with God.

Now let me ask this. Say you have children, but you adopt more kids into your family. Do you allow the adopted children to live as they please or do you make them conform to the rules of the home?

More importantly do you make your own children adhere to the house rules and the adopted children  conform to another set of rules just because they are adopted?

Odds are that you would make ALL the children adhere to all the same rules of the house. Why? Because you want order in the home, peace and tranquility. But the primary reason is that you love all your children and you want the best for them and you want them to be safe and sound and well balance human beings.

We are adopted into the family of God, through the root of  Abraham. Like our parents here on earth, our Father in Heaven is the same way, He wants order, He wants to keep us safe and He wants the best for us. But to do that, we need to submit to His Word, His rules, His Law as best as we can.

We Are Abraham's Heirs

Scripture says…

Romans 11:16  For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.

Romans 11:17  And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;

Romans 11:18  Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.

Here Paul is telling the Romans (gentiles) that they are graffed into the root, thus making them part of the family of Abraham.

He is also telling the Romans, gentiles.. us, that it is the root, Abraham, that bears us and not the other way around.

It is by grace we are brought into the family of God. It is by grace we are loved and are given entrance into the holiness of the Father.

We are saved by grace through the gift of our Lord Jesus' blood that was shed on the cross.  He purchased our lives with His blood and adopted into the family of God.

Like the adoptive parent who chooses the child, God chose us to be one of His. Could we have ignored the calling? Yes we can, that is our free will choice. But becoming a Christian does not end here, this is just the beginning.

We can never pay back what Christ did for us, but now that we are part of the family of God, there are rules that we are called to obey. Just like our own families, God has called us to also be obedient to Him.

Why?

Because He is our Lord and Savior, and it is our reasonable service to give our ALL to Him. Not because we are earning our salvation, that is impossible. We serve Him with our all because He purchased us with His blood. He chose us and it is our reasonable service to obey His commandments.

His Commandments are His Word and His Word is His Commandments. There is no separation

We are the adopted Children into the family of God, which make us His children. Therefore we are called, just like His "natural" children Israel, to be holy, live a holy life and to walk according to His Word. We do not use the grace given to us to live a carnal life in sin. Like any child we need to strive to please our heavenly father like we strived to please our earthly parents.

We do this not because obedience is what gets us into heaven. We obey His Word because we love Him and the sacrifice He gave just for us.

Living In The Law Through Grace

Now,  can we live up to all 300+ laws? There is no way that we could. But what God does in our lives is changes us slowly. Over time we are molded like the potter molds the clay to become more in His likeness and less in the likeness of the evils of the world.

God's law is there because He loves us and wants the best for us. Now is ALL the law for us? No. There are laws governing the Levites, Government, Leaders and such. Now if you are part of these groups, then you do fall under these laws. But for the common Christian it is the laws pertaining to the daily living of a just and holy life that pertain to us.

For example, Thou shall not kill (murder).

 Why do we need to obey this law?

Well for one to break it will bring serious consequences both from God and from society. The odds are also good that that if we do murder, we will pay with some heavy consequences and quite possibly with our life.

So do we rebel against Gods law, go out and go on some mass murder spree?

No, the best thing to do is simply obey His law not to murder. 

There are other laws that God put in place to protect us from harm and even disease.

Here are some examples…

Deut 14:8  And the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you: ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcase.

Well come to find out that to eat pork, one can get Trichinosis. Trichinosis is a parasitic (worms) disease caused by eating raw or undercooked pork.

Of the larger livestock breeds pork also spoils very quickly. When one slaughters it, they must be quick about it, keep the meat cool and then work on it instantly, preserving it. That was basically impossible to do in biblical times and if you ate pork, often you paid the price of getting Trichinosis or some form of food poisoning.

Here is another example that is found in Leviticus 11:10…

Lev 11:10  And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:

This is the famous "thou shall not eat shrimp" verse that the homosexuals like to pull out when talking about an abomination. The problem is that when one consumes these items, it is an abomination unto one's self, not unto God, where Sodomy is an abomination unto God.

But why this example?

It has been recently discovered, in the last 20 years or so, that shrimp and other items like this are high in cholesterol. Cholesterol is one of the major causes of heart attacks.

There are other things also, mercury and other poisons that are absorbed into the animal's flesh due to their diet. These are then passed on to us and stored in our body. Over a period of time these can have an effect on us physically. The cholesterol is high in the meat itself.  But due to the fact that shrimp and other crustacean are "carrion" feeders / bottom feeders, they are exposed to poisons and disease.

"Carrion" Feeders / Bottom Feeders?

This means that when something dies, it sinks to the bottom of the sea, lake, or river floor, and it is the crustacean that feeds upon the dead and rotting flesh. It is this feeding on the dead that causes other poisons, heavy metals to be absorbed into the crustacean meat and once we consume their flesh those poisons then enter into our systems. 

Now to expand on this let's look at an example.

The Ganges, which is a river in India is viewed as a very sacred river; it is held in high spiritual esteem by many of Hindu's faithful. When one dies, It is a great honor to have one's dead body to be set adrift upon the Ganges and it floats downstream till it lets out in the Indian Ocean.

It is a well known fact that at the mouth of the Ganges where it lets out into the ocean is one of the largest populations of rock crabs. These crabs grow very large in size and have a special taste to their meat, it is said to have a very sweet taste. There is a famous Singapore/Malaysian dish called "Chili Crab" made from these types of crabs and is quiet the delicacy in these areas.

Why do these crabs grow so large and have a special taste? It is due to what they feed on. Thousands of human bodies rotting at the mouth of the Ganges River. Can you imagine what these people died of? Think of the disease that is in the water just from these dead bodies?  All of these things are ingested by these very large rock crabs.

Now let me ask you. Is it a bad thing to observe this law that God put in place or should we go off and eat a boat load of crab caught at the mouth of the Ganges River?

"Oh Ray, those are crabs over there, we don't have dead humans floating around here."

Well that is true, but no matter what crustacean feed upon the dead. Can one still eat crab, shrimp and other crustacean?

Yes you can, and the odds are that nothing will happen. But when we choose to step outside of the Law of God, there are consequences and you are taking a risk. That is a fact. Kind of like playing "Russian Roulette." It only takes one bad crab to mess up your whole day, or life.

It is kind of like speeding down the freeway fifteen miles an hour over the limit.  Odds are that you will not get a ticket. But there is always that chance that there is a police officer sitting there in the distance shooting his radar gun and pegging people for speeding.

There is also the chance that you can get in an accident, that if you were not speeding you could have reacted quicker and possibly avoided the accident.

 It isn't until it is too late that you realize that you will be paying the consequences for breaking the law.

How could you have avoided getting the ticket or accident? Simple, live within the  confines of the law and not speed. How hard is that?

It is the same way with God's Law. God chastises his own and the law is there to protect us as well as set us apart from the evil of the world.

Charles H. Spurgeon said the following…

If you can sin and not weep over it, you are an heir of hell. If you can go into sin, and afterwards feel satisfied to have done so, you are on the road to destruction. If there are no prickings of conscience, no inward torments, no bleeding wounds; if you have no throbs and heavings of a bosom that cannot rest;... when you know you have done evil, you are no child of God. C. H. Spurgeon

We are adopted into the family of God and into the root of Abraham. We are called to obey and submit to ALL of God's Word, not to pick and choose as well see fit.  The key is that we cannot do this alone and it is only through the unwarranted grace and help of our Father in Heaven that we are able to walk the path of becoming more like Him and less of the evil world which we were once part of.

It is His Grace and His Law that loves us and protects us. It is also His Grace and His Law that sets us apart, holy and acceptable unto Him.

Transformed By The Renewing of Your Mind

Scripture says…

Romans 12:1  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Romans 12:2  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

 How we renew our minds is through God's Word, learning it, placing it in our heart and living it because we Love our Lord. As a result of us truly loving God we naturally desire to obey His commandments.

Jesus is The Word, the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega. He is the Creator and Savior. It is His Word that created all and His Word that will judge all.

It is also His Word that we are called to submit to.. all of His Word, that is if we truly love him.

Christ makes it clear that it is by our fruits that we will know who does and does not love God.

Mat 7:20  Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Mat 7:21  Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Mat 7:22  Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

Mat 7:23  And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

In fact Christ makes it very clear that there are "few" who will find the true path that leads to life.

Mat 7:13  Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:

Mat 7:14  Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

So do obey His Commandments because you love Him?

 Or do you make excuses, twist, cherry pick, and split hairs regarding God's Word because deep down you refuse to submit?

Christ said…  If ye love me, keep my commandments. (John 14:15)

Do you love Him, or is it all just talk, works and a lot of hot air?

What do your fruits show?

What excuses do you make?

But most importantly, Who do you serve?