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We are infected with a grace of understanding and a grace of intent to cling to the will of the law. We have been invaded with the faithfulness of God’s will in our lives, a will that is the grace of Love. His Grace that permeates our lives and our will as a sweet fragrance. His Lovingkindness overwhelmes us and comforts our souls when we are troubled or when those who refuse God’s will rebel and rebuke us. His Love and His Law comfort us as a warm blanket against the winds of degradation and rejection. This was promised of old and fulfilled with Christ Jesus, the source of our santification and Grace.

But even as we are weak and slid into the pits of the world, the Mercy of the Father comes by the Son and with the Spirit of Forgiveness and correction, we are made whole again. By the Mercy of the Father, the Gift of the Spirit the Blessing of the Son, we delight in the righteousness of God and the law of His Word. Even as we are unfaithful to God, He is always faithful to us and His desire is for us to live with Him; Christ in us. That is our prayer, one of praise and thanksgiving; for God is great and His law is merciful.

These very verses (73-77) are spoken as a prayer of praise but the verses that follow are the rebuke of the shameful. The call of judgment upon those who use lies and deceit against the believer. Those who are mockers of the Truth and the Will of God. The Psalm says that the even while they mock and lie, he will not listen but will meditate on the Word of God. He will search the world so that there can be no wrong finding with how he lives and worships God. They can find that in the Love of the Law is righteousness and worthiness. The Law does not save, obedience ion the law is the path of the saved.

We need to remember that we are the servants of God as Christ served us. We are to minister to others as Christ ministered to us. We are to seek how to live in Christ’s law as the Children of the Cross, redeemed and released to do good works in His Love. As we struggle with the temptations of the world, we deal out mercy and kindness just as God dealt with us. In that way we can take delight in the Word as to not cause injury or harm to anyone. We who delight in Christ have even more reason to delight in the Law of God’s Love. By the very mercy given to us, we are to take joy in seeing mercy given in God’s Name for others.

As God fashioned us by His Hands, we are to fashion our lives by the law of Christ, given freely to us who deserve nothing. As the Children of Israel where the Chosen of the Father, to be the messengers of the the Law, we are chosen of Christ Jesus to be the messengers of God’s mercy. By the election of the Holy Spirit, we are to live holy and blameless in the Law of Love. We are to be acceptable to the Father so that others may find acceptance in Christ. Through Christ we see the effect of God’s mercy and kindness. We can see how to live and why God gave us the Law, the Word of Life. We are not bound to the Law by despair, but are joined to the Law by the Blood and the Love of Christ. We can live in the spirit of the Law because we can understand the purpose of the law. We can comprehend the Love of the Father and see that it is within our means to love, not fear, God in all His Mighty Glory. We can see that to love one another is to be in union with God, for he loves us so much that He gave His All for us.

Those who walk in the flesh, will be envious of the love that God showers on us, they will stand in awe of the Mercy given to us. They will be shamed and and they will seek us out. Our love will be heaped upon them like burning coals, scorching their hearts and they will seek forgiveness. They will burn with desire but they will not understand. And as they have wronged us, they have wronged God. They shall be be made weak, and they shall shed their vanities and be humbled before God.

But let us not boast, for even as we are still of the flesh, we are weak. Even as we still sin and fall short of righteousness, we must always seek to be right with God. We need the discipline of God in our ways. We need to accept that God corrects us with harshness not because He is angry, but because He loves us. We are not rejected from His love but are guided by the rod of Righteousness. We should not be crying out “Why me, O LORD?” but need to examine that which is in our lives that rivals against God and His Loving Grace. Hebrews 12:7-11 reads: “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom the father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who discipline us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they discipline us for a short time as it seems best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (ESV)

But even as we are mocked, we will not be weakened, but will draw strength from the Word of God. As we meditate on the Word and the Will of the Father of Life, we show resolve in the Law. We see the Love of God and His purpose, His Will and His Love. And as they see our lives, working in harmony as one body (in Christ), they will turn form their ways and listen to our testimonies of service to God’s will. Let us therefore, be content with the Law, let us be constant in our Faith and our resolve to God and His statutes. Let our religion be pure and unblemished sacrifices of honor and obedience to God. In that there is no shame nor blame. May we boldly go to the Temple of His Love, enter into the sanctuary of Christ and bow before the throne of God, through Christ Jesus, and proclaim our love. May we be found Holy and Blameless before the King of kings, the LORD of Lords. May we pride in the observance of the Love of God, given to us by the Law of the Word.

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Sep. 4
Whatever the world thinks, he who hath not much meditation on God, the human mind, and the summum bonum, may possibly make a thriving earthworm, but will indubitably make a sorry patriot and a sorry statesman. - George Berkeley

Sep. 3
I distrust those people who what God wants them to do, because I notice that it always coincides with their own desires. - Susan B. Anthony

Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments!
Then your peace would have been like a river.
and your righteousness like the waves of the sea… Isaiah 48:18

It matters not how oft you kneel
In attitude of prayer so true
Unless inside, where no man sees,
Your very soul is kneeling too. - Mary L. O’Hare

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As did Israel, we ignore the cause of the widows and do not serve justice to the orphans, but we bring satisfaction to the “princes” of commerce and with false “righteousness”, seek to justify their sins with our own misgiving. We support cruel regimes, deal with countries that use forced child labor and we visit nations that employ children as prostitutes. As Isaiah says (Isaiah 10:2) “They turn aside the needy from justice, and rob the poor of my people of their right, the widows may be their spoil and that they may make the fatherless their prey.” This is what we allow to happen when we stand by and let churches build mega buildings and drive fancy cars and still do not care for the homeless and the defenceless within their communities. This is what happens when we do not challenge our government when they support evil regimes and even add them in their abuses.

I am not saying that all large churches or denominations are like this, but there are enough of them to make it an issue. But I see that companies are enriching themselves by the extortion of the weak and that they continue to use immigrants, children and single mothers to supply their workforce and fail to compensate them with adequate wages.

God told the prophet, Jeremiah, For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, ….then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.” And as you know, they did not obey and repent. So they lost their land and they were taken into captivity.

This is what we are allowing to happen when we stand by and let churches and the governments get rich while ignoring the needs of the very people we are commanded by God to protect. This is what is happening when we allow our leaders to impose laws that deny the needs of the fatherless orphans and the widows and those who have no home to go to. And if have governments and church leaders that do not make provisions to aid and protect the weakest of our societies, we are enablers of dysfunction. Because God put so much regard on the caring for the weakest, most vulnerable, of our society, He would take the nation away from the people if they did not repent and return to the Law.

Ezekiel speaks of the injustice that was rampant among the Chosen People of God (Ezekiel 22:1-12) and he includes the fatherless, widow, sojourners, and the elderly even before he lists the sexual sins or bribes and extortion. God regards the injustice to the homeless and the fatherless and the widows as major. God considers the injustice to immigrants, orphans and widow with the same contempt as idolatry and incest.

Malachi says that God will give swift justice against those who are oppressive. While I have heard pastors quote Malachi 3:8 many times in regard to tithing, I have no recollection of them ever quoting the verses that proceed it. The verses that say how the tithe is to be used. Malachi 3:3-5) “He will sit and judge like a refiner of silver, watching closely as the dross is burned away. He will purify the Levites (Pastors and priests), refining them like gold and silver, so that they may once again offer acceptable sacrifice to the LORD. Then the LORD once more will accept the offerings brought befor him by the people of Judea and Jerusalem, as he did in former times. At that time I will put you on trial. I will be a ready witness against all sorcerers and adulterers and liars. I will speak against those who cheat employees of their wages, who oppress widows and orphans, who deprive the foreigners living amongst you of justice, for these people do not fear me,” says the LORD Almighty.”

This is how we rob God of His tithe. We need to not only be generous in our offerings and giving to the church, we must be assured that the offerings are being use for more than just running a building or paying wages to a pastor-ship. It is to be used for the uplifting and support of the helpless.

I have only one New Testament passage that I want to impart with you. It comes from the Letter of James 1:27, “Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans and widows in their troubles, and refuse to let the world corrupt us.” In these few and simple words, we can be assured that Jesus calls upon us to care for the needy and to protect the defenceless. I call upon the Church that is Christ, to go forth and do as the command of God tells us to. Return to the Spirit of the Law and be blessed by the Spirit of God.

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Deuteronomy 10:12-13 reads as this: And now, O Israel, what does your God ask of you but to fear the LORD, your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and to observe the LORD’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good.” (NIV) It is followed by telling who God is to the people and how His might is great. Verse 17 states that God is impartial and takes no bribes. What is the next thing on His list is (Deut 10:18) “He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widows, and the alien, giving them food and clothing.” This begins a long history of how God looked upon the the care of the needing and the homeless. This was the beginning of God’s Law for the care of the fatherless and the widows. Those who were without defenders had God as the advocate. The third year tithe was for the purpose of supporting the Levies, the sojourners and the fatherless and widows.(Deut 14:29) It was to be shared responsibility of the community for the needs of the helpless and for those who had no support.God told His people that they shall not pervert justice: to the fatherless (orphans), the Widows (Deut 24:17) He also commanded that they “When you reap your harvest,…beat your olive trees,…gather your grapes…. do not go back. It is for the fatherless orphans, the sojourners and the widows.”(Deut 24:20-21)

When the Children of Israel were to enter in the feasts of the Passover, they were to include the fatherless and the widows and the travelers in with their own families so that they would not be excluded. This was also true of the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Booths. God did not want them to be left out of anything that pertained to His Blessings.

The last verse that I want to include here is Deuteronomy 26:12-13. “When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year, which is the year of tithing, giving it to the Levites (priests), the sojourner (migrants), the fatherless (orphans and abandoned children), and the widows, so that they may eat within your towns and be filled, then you shall say before the LORD your God, ‘I have removed the sacred portion out of my house, and moreover, I have given it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow, according to all your commandments, nor have I forgotten them.’”

As we reflect on the Law of God, let us realize that when we pass laws of man that impede the welfare of the those who have no fathers and the widows and those who unable to work, we are impeding God. And as He is the the finial Judge, he will give justice to them in Heaven while we are to receive another form of His Justice. This goes back to the Matthew 25, and to Luke 16 and to many other times that Jesus told us that we are to be judged as to how we chose to accept or reject His Word in our lives.

As one old revivalist once told me, we may not be able to earn our way to Heaven but we can surely earned our way to Hades. Because we spend so much time in the New Testament, we tend to forget that the Love of Jesus was in fulfillment of the Old Testament and that when the disciples taught and referred to the Scriptures, they were referring to the Law of God in the Old and to the Prophets. Somehow we have blocked the commandment of community aid to the orphans, widows and, yes, to the immigrants, as we were told to by God’s own words. We have not only put up borders on our nations to keep people out, we have put up barriers on our hearts to prevent us from helping the ones who most need our assistance with in our own cities and towns.

We complain about the taxes we pay and we don’t pay our tithes as we should. Our churches are stopping their food pantries and most do not even have a program slotted to aid orphans and low income widows. And yet, as I have read Deuteronomy, we should direct one third of our tithe to the well being of these members of our society. If our pastors are to be housed and fed by the churches, then so should the orphans and widows and the homeless. It is because we in the churches have failed to take on the the task, that the governments have assumed the burden through taxes. Return to the Law of God in this area of our lives and we shall be blessed. Because we fail in the care of our weakest members of society, we have transgressed against God, we have forgotten how he has commanded us to protect the weak and defend the defenceless

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