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Why Does God Make Rules (Commands)
(Isaiah 48:17-18) “17 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, The Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord your God, Who teaches you to profit, Who leads you by the way you should go. 18 Oh, that you had heeded My commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.”
“Oh, that you had heeded My commandments!” This expresses the sincere wish and plea of God, that we keep His commandments. But why would God be so concerned, that He would plead with us to heed His commandments?
As a child my family took many road trips. As we would get out of the city limits, we would look at the scenery, and try to spot wildlife on the way. It seemed wherever we went, no matter what direction out of the city, we saw these white wooden, metal or even cardboard crosses. I didn’t pay much attention to them, until one day I saw someone putting flowers by one of those crosses. I asked my father what it meant, and was shocked to learn that they all represented deaths that had occurred along the road.
It seems you can’t turn on the news anymore without some group or an individual complaining about the laws we have. “Big brother wants to invade our privacy, or they’re trying to take away our freedom,” you often hear. With people talking on their phones, texting and the many other things you see while you are driving, can you imagine how dangerous driving would be if we didn’t have laws in place? Instead of seeing the red light camera’s, speed limits, and texting while driving laws as invading our privacy, or limiting our freedom, these laws are in place to save lives and protect us.
In the same way this applies to God’s commandments. You may have heard people say, “I could never be a member of the church of Christ, because you have so many rules. Just love God and love your neighbor, like Jesus said, that’s all we need.” They are right about the two greatest commandments found in Luke 10 verse 27, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” But if we are disobeying God’s commandments and making sinful, morally wrong choices, can we really say that we love God and love our neighbors? Doesn’t it make sense, that rather than “all these rules or commands” being an impediment to love, that they are there to protect us and help us to love even more? 2 John 1:6 says, “And this is love that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it.”
For instance, the bible tells us that God wants us to come to church to worship him every Sunday. Does He do it to place a burden on us? He does it because he wants to feed us with his Word. He knows that we need this nourishment, as well as the support of our Christian brothers and sisters. How else are we going to ward off attacks made by Satan without the strength of our spiritual family, and the knowledge of God’s word? Like all loving fathers, God wants to spend time with his children and to build an intimate relationship with them. So instead of being something that is inconvenient and burdensome, it enables us to live life more fully.
All of God’s teachings are like this; they are given to us so that we may be truly free and profit the most from life. Just as parents, out of love, will lay down certain rules for their children, God does the same for all of us, His children. His high moral standards are not meant to be a burden and rob us of our freedom, but rather to free us to love more deeply and to live our spiritual lives to the fullest.
Psalms 1:1-2 states, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night”.
I leave you with a few quotes on obedience:
“I find the doing of the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans.”
~ George Macdonald
“How many observe Christ’s birthday! How few, His precepts!”
~ Benjamin Franklin
“Beware of reasoning about God’s Word – obey It.”
~ Oswald Chambers
“Why do you need a voice when you have a verse?”
~ Jim Elliot
