Love Affair with the Law

“Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye.” (Pr 7:2 AV)

There are different reasons we may keep the law of the word of God.  Simply because we value it may not be the highest on our motivation list.  We may keep the law as a sense of duty.  However, if we are physically unable to, we excuse it.  Like a sentry who may be standing watch because it is his duty to do it, may fall asleep at his post because it is a duty and not a love.  We may keep the law because we see the benefits associated with the keeping it.  The trouble is, with the blessing also comes a cost.  There may be persecution associated with keeping the law.  If we determine the cost is greater than the benefit, then the law is rejected.  If the law is a mere goal or target, then seeing we miss that target, we fail to be interested in meeting that goal.  Like dieting, the law is tried and failed because we are not disciplined to see it all the way through or we simply do not appreciate what the law does.  Solomon instructs his son to love the law.  Love is at the center of all attraction and value.  Not a passing relationship with it, but rather, a love affair with the law.  Solomon understood this from his father.  According to Psalm 119, David loved the law.

There is an exhibit at the Strong Museum in Chicago, IL that is my favorite.  To must, it is boring.  It is on the first floor, right inside the front entrance.  At least is used to be there over a decade ago.  It is one of the smaller exhibits.  If I remember right, it only might be no larger than one large room.  It is an exhibit to man’s invention to read God’s perfect.  That perfection is time.  This exhibit is wall to wall and floor to ceiling time pieces of different value and characteristics.  What amazed me to most is seeing mechanical times pieces invented hundreds of years ago that can keep time almost as precise as a modern-day atomic clock.  The ingenuity it took for the clock maker to fine tune a mechanical device to the level of perfection his piece attained is beyond our comprehension.  One has to love time in order to be that precise in his calculations and workmanship.  His goal is to make something as close to God’s perfection as possible.  He is not pleased with a miscalculation of even the smallest of measure.  He loves perfection.  That is what makes all great artists great.

When it comes to being like our Savior, we must love the law.  The law of perfection must be the apple of the eye.  It matters not how often we fall short so long as we get back up and dust ourselves off to try again.  The law has to be the love of our life.  Besides God, there really should be no greater love.  If we are failing in our spiritual walk with God, we have replaced the law with another object or objects.  The law has to be what the eye focuses upon.  The law has to be the apple of the eye!