August 15, 2022
Daily Devotion:
"Obligation and Desire…"
Jeremiah 31:31-33
New International Version
31 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to[a] them,[b]” declares the Lord. 33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
What is the difference between obligation and desire? Or have to and want to? It is the difference, really, between the laws of Moses and the law of Christ. Between checklist religion and wish list faith. Under the old law it was mostly a matter of checking off each and every duty imposed upon the people of Israel. And if you managed to adhere perfectly to the law, then you could convince yourself that you were a righteous person. After all, there was the law, written in great detail in black and white, to match your life against. By contrast when Jeremiah speaks of a new covenant to come, he is talking first of all about a “law" that no longer has the look and feel of a formal legal code. Not that there isn't any law at all. In fact all the same moral laws still apply as under the laws of Moses. Yet apart from the form of the "law" itself, the primary difference is one of motivation. If law-keeping under Moses was done in order to be saved, law-keeping under Christ is to be done because we are saved. It's not what we have to do, but what we wish to do! On one level even children know the difference between having to do and wanting to do. Whereas strict do's and don't s are tailor-made for children, maturity brings with it an appreciation for doing things without having to be told. No wonder the law was said to be a schoolmaster preparing the way for Christ. In Christ we finally grow up!
The motivating question is: Do I live my life out of duty and obligation or out of the sheer joy of serving the Lord?
