The Law; The Escape

Last week I explained one of the reasons living without sin looks difficult for some believers. If you missed out on that, kindly go back to read before proceeding. From my explanation, I made it clear that living by the law is a strain for any believer and makes liberty from sin a struggle; hence, the solution is in living a life of expressing God.

Having said that, let me then take you through what exactly it is when it is said that a believer is still living under the law.

Let’s go back to the beginning. Adam and Eve never lived under the law. The dispensation of the law started after they fell. “But Adam and Eve were given a law which going against it led to their fall?”

That was not the law, it was an instruction.  

The law is a written instruction that has making man acceptable before God as its ultimate purpose. The instruction at the Garden of Eden was not to make them acceptable; they were already accepted by God. The law came into place after the fall. That was when man needed to do certain things to be acceptable by God. So you’d see Cain and Abel making sacrifices to be acceptable by God. Their sacrifice was a determinant of acceptability. So, this makes it clear what living under the law is all about; a system where you have to keep up with certain things to find favour before God.

                                      

Jesus then came to fulfill all of these laws that were to make man acceptable before God. This means no more laws to keep being accepted. So, all that man now needs to do is to believe in Jesus who is a sweet smelling savour to God and then indirectly man keeps all the laws.

“For they don’t understand that Christ has died to make them right with God. Instead they are trying to make themselves good enough to gain God’s favour by keeping the Jewish laws and customs, but that is not God’s way of salvation. They don’t understand that Christ gives to those who trust in him everything they are trying to get by keeping the laws. He ends all of that” Romans 10:3-4 (TLB)

Knowing you don’t have to keep up with anything to be acceptable by God should propel you to knowing living accepted is the easiest route to being free unacceptability.

So, an act can become a law when the purpose of carrying it out is to win God’s favour. And the more you do this, the more frustrated such a life can be as nothing is worthy of pleasing the Father except His Son. You see some people give to the work of the ministry so they can get a certain percentage back in blessing. It is a life of law that leads to frustration when nothing comes after they have parted with their resources.

Now, let’s tie this to expressing God. When man was under the law, he expressed the law by doing what the law says. For you to express Christ you must have a relationship with the Holy Spirit who is the voice of the Christ. There is no shortcut and this starts from identity.

When you gave your life to Christ, your nature becomes that of Christ (2 Cor 5:17). A man born into a certain ethnic group speaks the language of that community by nature and does not need to go through a formal schooling to communicate in the language. He just keeps expressing himself. However, for him to speak another language, he goes through the rigour of learning because this is not his natural habitat.

After you gave your life to Christ, your natural place is righteousness. So, living a life without sin is not a thing of how, but a thing of who. A man in Christ is not learning to be righteous, he is righteous (2Cor5:21). When it is about a man in Christ, you need not try not to sin, he just goes on not sinning.

Your expression of Jesus is in your understanding of your nature. You don’t need a law to guide you on how to speak the language of the place of your natural birth. So, you wake up daily not having forgiveness of sin on your prayer list because it is not even in your consciousness as a possibility. You just wake up each day doing God; the same way speaking your natural language is not a task! Sin should be what you struggle with as you struggle to learn a new language.

“The person who has been born into God’s family does not make a practice of sinning, because now God’s life is in him; so he can’t keep on sinning, for this new life has been born into him and controls him-he has been born again” 1 John 3:9 (TLB)

This practically works when you can accept this truth about your identity and develop an active communication with the Holy Spirit. He is right there within you. You have got the victory.

Have a righteousness filled week!

Be Innovated

Olufemi Ibitoye