“And because you listen to these rules and keep and do them, the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love that he swore to your fathers.”
— Deuteronomy 7:12
We began this 35-day devotional journey at the foot of Sinai, where God spoke these words with His own voice and inscribed them with His own finger on tablets of stone. We end it in the same place, but perhaps with different eyes. Because the ten commandments are not ten restrictions on a life that could have been freer without them. They are ten habits, ten practices, ten orientations of heart and life that produce the only kind of freedom that is worth having.
They begin with the reality of God and the priority of His worship, because everything else in the moral life flows from how we relate to Him. They protect the family, which is the laboratory of every virtue and the foundation of every civilization. They guard the precious things: life, fidelity, honesty, and contentment. And they reach all the way down into the interior of the human heart, where the law meets not just what we do but who we are.
Jesus did not come to abolish these commandments. He came to fulfill them, to live them out perfectly in our place, and then to write them on the hearts of everyone who receives Him. The commandments show us our need. The Gospel answers it. And then the Spirit of God, living in us, empowers us to walk in what we could never achieve on our own. “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
If you have traveled through this devotional series as someone who does not yet know Jesus Christ, I want to say this directly to you: you have seen your own reflection in these pages. We have all broken these commandments, in substance and in spirit. All of us. And the wages of that is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. You can settle your account with God today, not by trying harder to keep the commandments, but by trusting the One who kept them perfectly on your behalf. Give Him your life. He is ready to receive it.
These are God’s laws for life. Not suggestions. Not cultural guidelines. Not helpful tips. They are the words of the living God, written for your flourishing. Keep them. Love them. And trust the Savior who makes it possible.
THE COMMANDMENTS SHOW YOU YOUR NEED, AND THE GOSPEL ANSWERS IT. TRUST THE SAVIOR WHO FULFILLED THEM FOR YOU.
