For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Say I had a boat, and it was made out of ten boards, laid on its floor. When all ten were in place, sealed, then my boat would float.
What would happen if there was a crack?
What would happen if one of the boards got loose and fell out of place?
What would happen if I did not love God, or love my neighbor as myself?
Not too long ago, I prayed fervently for God to show me more about the meaning of my sin. I knew that my works were like “filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6) and I knew that the “wages of sin was death” (Romans 6:23), but did I really? Did I really understand? As a “saved” Christian, my sin had started to feel comfortable and I realized that I had no fear of the Lord, especially when it came to my sin. Complacent. Accepting. I had no urgency, no despair. No repentance.
And also, no joy.
God gave me a few Scriptures that dealt with some of this:
1. “I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the words of the LORD. They shall wander from sea to sea, And from north to east, They shall run to and fro seeking the word of the LORD, But shall not find it.” Amos 8:11-12
2. “Present your case,” says the LORD. “Bring forth your strong reasons,” says the King of Jacob . . . . “Indeed you are nothing and your work is nothing; He who chooses you is an abomination.” Isaiah 41:21-24
3. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had said to him, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” So Peter went out and wept bitterly. (Luke 22:61-62)
4. Oh, that my ways were directed to keep your statutes! Then I would not be ashamed, When I look into all Your commandments. (Psalm 119:5-6)
Jeepers.
Ultimately, what God impressed upon my heart in this season was that fearing the Lord means having a fear of being apart from Him. In other words, it is being fearful of being out of the protection and leading of His Spirit.
And what causes us to be apart from Him? The boards that come loose in our boat. The commands that I look into and find shame. The commands He gives, not only from the Law of Moses, but also in the law of liberty, the law of Jesus, the law of Love, where I still fall short. Where sin is still revealed. It is as though we are told to build ourselves these boats, except we only get planks of wood and no glue, no nails, no hammers.
It is a project we cannot complete to save our lives.
Romans 7:7 says, I would not have known sin except through the law, through those leaky cracks of the law. The leaky cracks of my soul: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind (Matt. 22:37, Deut. 6:5, 10:12, 30:6) and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Matt. 22:39, Lev. 19:18).
If the law is to love God wholly, and to love our neighbors as ourselves, and if the law — any kind of law — is used to show us our sin, then the only sin I can truly ever be committing when I am already in Jesus is the failure to love.
My boat, then, is only made up of two boards and when the one crack between them starts to seep deep salty water it is already too late and I might as well jump overboard and hope for the best.
Except for Jesus.
Jesus is the seal, the balm, the glue of those two boards; He was pierced for our transgressions and those nails in His and hands and feet keep our boards together. The cross plugs up these leaky corners of our hearts and minds and souls and maintains our love boats afloat, that is the law of liberty. Because only when we are afloat are we free, free to explore the unchartered waters, free to follow where His wind leads, free to bask in the light of the sun, the Son.
My fear has then become to grow so far from His Spirit, so far from His ways, that I am all alone on that sinking raft. Because inevitably, my raft will sink; the anxious water below my boat will seize any opportunity to rise up and prevail. The fear is that I am out there crying for help in the dark water engulfing this life I’ve got, and that the wind, the air, the Lord, is silent.
That I have wandered so far from the Living God that it takes a capsized life to call for rescue.
I was already saved from that kind of death once before; why do I tempt this whole thing and wander back to that place? I don’t want to be rescued like that again, and again, and again. I want to notice these small leaks in my boat when they begin, and I want the glue of love, I want Jesus to come seal it up in Spirit and flesh and heart, soul, and mind. And I want to carry on our merry way. No emergency.
I want to grab hold of that mercy that triumphs over judgment before it has to grab hold of me.
The pressure of the water on a floating boat is enormous. To me, unmeasurable, when looked at in a metaphorical sense. Everything about these lives of ours is pressing for us to fail, to crack, to split, to capsize. But a boat that is sealed completely, crafted perfectly, has no trouble against this pressure. I say again, that this is mercy, that if I let Jesus fill the holes of my transgression, I float with no threat of going under. Mercy triumphs over judgement and I look up and I see that when I am walking in His ways, knowing His truth, loving His law of which I fail so miserably, I am looking at a God who says: Sealed. Covered. Paid. Done. Triumph.
Bon voyage.
Thirst 