LIfe or Death?

In Deuteronomy 30:15 Moses presents before the people of God a choice between life and death. In a few more verses, verse 19 to be exact, Moses encourages the people to choose life.

In 2 Peter 1:3 we are told that in Jesus we have all we need for godliness and for life.

So, in reality, Moses was telling God’s people to choose God because it is only in God that we have life.

We depend on many things, both good and bad, to bring real meaning to life.

Things like:

Family

Sex

Money

Religion

Material Things

Achievements

Good Deeds

The problem with any of those things is that they will let you down and not fulfill you. Again, it is only in Jesus that we find what fulfills us and will never let us down.

The thing that many look to for purposeful life is religion.

Romans 8:2

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

2 Corinthians 3:6

Who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

If we try to live by the letter of the law, it brings death.

There are two reasons that the law brings death.

First, we as humans are incapable of perfectly following the law, and that is what God requires if we are going to depend on the law.

Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned because we have not met the standard that God has set. That standard is perfection and only Jesus has ever perfectly fulfilled law by living it out. We are thus not capable of perfectly following the law because of our fallen nature.

Second, even if we could perfectly follow the law, the law cannot impart life. God is life and only He can give us life.

The choice is life or death.

God → Life

Law → Death

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is choosing Jesus and receiving life.

This truth is illustrated in the comparison of the Old Testament celebration of the Feast of Weeks and the New Testament celebration of Pentecost.

The Feast of Weeks comes fifty days after Passover and it marks when Moses received the law from God. When Moses came down from the mountain after receiving the law, the people had made other gods for themselves and were worshiping them. When Moses saw what was going on, he threw the stones tablets with the ten commandments and they broke. God then instructed Moses to have the Levities take their swords and go into the people and kill whoever they encountered. The result was that three thousand people died.

Pentecost, which is the Greek name for the Feast of Weeks and thus comes fifty days after Passover, was when the Spirit came to dwell in the lives of the followers of Jesus. When the Spirit came upon the believers, they went out among the people and spoke the Word of God with boldness. The result was that three thousand people came to new life in Jesus.

These two celebrations show that the law leads to death, but that the Spirit leads to life.

I tried for years to please God by trying to do all the right things that the Bible tells us that we should do. I experienced nothing but frustration and failure.

When God’s Spirit showed that I could not do it based in my ability and on my resources, I totally surrendered the authority and reasonability of my life over to Jesus. I had trusted Jesus as Savior and now I understood that I needed to let Him be the Lord of my life. Jesus, not me, needed to run my life. That is when I experienced freedom, peace, and fulfillment.

The law shows us our sin.

The Spirit bring forgiveness from sin and freedom to live in the reality of Jesus.

Picture it this way:

The law is like a stop sign. When we run past it without stopping, it shows us that we have broken the law.

The Spirit is like the judge who declares us guilty and then comes down from the bench, takes off his robes, and pays the fine for us. 

I pray you will choose the Spirit and thus choose life.

Choosing the Spirit, Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                          Joe