His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy: Living the Ten Commandments and Giving Them to Our Children

by Jani Ortlund

Overview

Many Christians view the Ten Commandments as laws they are forced to obey in order to stay on God's good side. In her book His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy, Jani Ortlund invites readers to look at the Ten Commandments from a different perspective. Ortlund urges believers to recognize the Ten Commandments as a mirror, reflecting our need for God's cleansing and forgiveness.

Throughout the book, each commandment is presented not as another rule to follow, but as an invitation to experience more of God's love. As readers grasp this knowledge, they are able to experience true freedom in Christ. They will begin to understand how embracing God's laws and passing them along to future generations offers a needy world a glimpse of the truth of God's love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781433520006
Publisher:	Crossway
Publication date:	08/09/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Jani Ortlund is a well-known writer and conference speaker. She is the wife of Raymond Ortlund Jr., who is an author, a former seminary professor and pastor, and the president at Renewal Ministries. Jani, a former schoolteacher, holds a master's degree in education and serves as executive vice president at Renewal Ministries (ortlund.net). The Ortlunds have four children and fifteen grandchildren.

Jani Ortlund is a well-known writer and conference speaker. She is the wife of Raymond Ortlund Jr., who is an author, a former seminary professor and pastor, and the president at Renewal Ministries. Jani, a former schoolteacher, holds a master’s degree in education and serves as executive vice president at Renewal Ministries (ortlund.net). The Ortlunds have four children and fifteen grandchildren.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

NO OTHER GODS

"You shall have no other gods before me."

EXODUS 20:3

Ray and I travel a lovely twelve-mile drive along a country road to get to our church. But I often arrive feeling rather guilty. Why do I treat the 40 mph speed sign as just a suggestion from my local sheriff? Depending on how late I leave home on a Sunday morning, 45 to 50 mph will do quite nicely for me, thank you.

We live in a day where our sense of self is elevated to such a degree that our sense of personal responsibility has almost vanished. We always have good, justifiable reasons for what we do. "Someone else may be guilty, but not me!"

William Kilpatrick relates a story from a Boston College colleague: "[My colleague] told me that he once asked members of his philosophy class to write an anonymous essay about a personal struggle over right and wrong, good and evil. Most of the students, however, were unable to complete the assignment. 'Why?' he asked [them]. 'Well,' they said — and apparently this was said without irony — 'We haven't done anything wrong.' We can see a lot of selfesteem here, but very little self-awareness."

The Ten Commandments bring us face-to-face with our inner reality. We have seen that the law is like a mirror, reflecting to us our imperfections and failures. And it is a good mirror, clear and true. We need it. "Who can discern his errors?" (Psalm 19:12). "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?"(Jeremiah 17:9). Do we believe God's description of our hearts? Do you believe this is true of your heart, and your child's heart? Our hearts are worse than we know.

A mirror is only useful to someone who looks into it with eyes opened. There is real evil in this world. But there is a deeper truth to be told. The Bible says there is real evil in our souls (Romans 3:9–19), and the law of God reveals it.

The law's purpose, however, is deeper than providing a mirror for moral reflection. The law is meant to draw us to the One who can cleanse what we see in that mirror, and in that cleansing, win our hearts, so that we learn to love and obey his law. "I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart!"

(Psalm 119:32). "Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it" (Psalm 119:35).

Grace precedes law. The first nineteen chapters of Exodus are full of God's gracious care for the children of Israel. "I am the Lord your God, who ..." The entire story up to this point has been grace. For eighteen chapters, all the way to Mount Sinai, it is God who acted, God who cared, and God who rescued these slaves and made them into a people. God took the initiative over and over again. That is what his grace does for us — it rescues us from what we can't do on our own. God's grace is a massive rescue operation.

And grace should never be a passive force in the life of a believer. We are shaped by grace from start to finish. It should activate and liberate us. The nature of God's grace energizes and inspires his children.

Do you remember those days as a child when you so wanted to buy your father a Father's Day gift but had no money of your own? If you were like me, you would go to your dad and ask for some cash. He would ask you what you needed it for, and when you told him, he would smile, reach into his pocket, and give you the money. Sometimes he would even drive you to the store to spend it. And on Father's Day, around the dinner table, in all sincerity he would make much of your present. Your gift was from him and for him and to him — grace from start to finish.

HIS LOVING LAW

In Exodus 20:1–2 God reminds Israel of his redeeming grace. They belong to him now. He has loved them and redefined his relationship to them, essentially saying, "Do you remember who you were? You were slaves, but now you are my people. I value you."

The first commandment called for an undivided love from slaves for their Redeemer. God was calling them out of their familiar world into an exclusive, intimate relationship with him. In the ancient world polytheism was assumed. All the other nations in Israel's day had a smorgasbord of gods and goddesses that they could mix and match and with whom they exchanged loyalties in order to ensure whatever they needed at that time.

The plagues targeted Egypt's various gods (their gods of water and sun, and darkness, and so on, Exodus 12:12) and called for Israel to leave them behind (Ezekiel 20:7–8). God was saying to those he rescued, "I have discredited those gods. I alone am God, and I am your God. You shall have no other gods before me."

THE EXCLUSIVE LOVE OF GOD

What do we see about God in this first commandment? We see that God loves us with an exclusive love. The love of God is an intense, specific, passionate love, and, as we'll see when we look at the second commandment, God describes the sort of love he has for us as jealous love. He will not share his redeemed son or daughter with another. "You shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God" (Exodus 34:14).

God's jealousy over his loved one is not ugly or selfish. His relationship with his redeemed one is exclusive because intimacy thrives in exclusivity. The Bible often refers to our relationship with God using a marital metaphor. What husband would tolerate sharing his wife's heart with another? What wife wouldn't want her husband to rise up and call her back to him if another man started demanding her attention? God is saying, "I am giving myself to you in grace. I don't want anything between us. I want to be the sole object of your devotion and allegiance and worship." Do you hear God's loving words to you, his loving jealousy over your heart?

Have you ever walked through the airport listening with half an ear to the messages being repeated over the speaker system? "In the interest of public safety, smoking is confined to the designated areas ... There is no parking along the curb ... All parked cars will be towed at the owner's expense ... Paging Mrs. Jani Ortlund. ..." (Wait a minute — they just called my name!) "Mrs. Ortlund, please proceed to the nearest white courtesy phone for an important message." We ignore the messages until they speak our name!

In this commandment, God is speaking your name. He is saying, "I have called you and brought you to myself. I have redeemed you from your own personal Egypt. And I am jealous for your heart. I want you to love me above everything else. I want your undivided love. You shall have no other gods before me."

God is single, whole. He gives himself wholly. He hates division, whether between brothers (Proverbs 6:19), or in his tabernacle (Exodus 26:6), and most especially in our hearts (1 Chronicles 28:9; Psalm 73:25). His grace demands our undivided love. Through this first command God is protecting and nurturing his intense, exclusive love relationship with his beloved.

THE LOVING EXPOSURE OF OTHER GODS

You may be thinking, "I don't have any other gods. For goodness's sake, I am a Christian. Is this even relevant today?" But remember to whom this command was written — to God's redeemed. God was speaking to his own children. The very wording of it acknowledges that there are other gods whom we do and will worship. God wouldn't warn us against things that don't exist.

The truth is we do have other gods. We don't actually eliminate God, but we allow god substitutes to cohabit beside him. These may not be full-sized replacements for God, but we become increasingly attached to them, making God remote.

Anything that comes between God and us that compromises our walk with him is a god to us. We are saying, "You're not really enough for this situation, Lord. You are not providing for me or protecting me or fulfilling me in the ways that I need, so I am bringing this other god into my life to close the gap between your inadequacy and my needs."

You don't need to be kneeling before a tangible idol to be enslaved. "Whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved" (2 Peter 2:19). How do you know if something is overwhelming, or enslaving, you? Well, consider this:

* Where do you turn in times of trouble?

* When you are lonely or discouraged, what is your first source of comfort?

* What do you love and admire and honor?

* What excites you?

* What do you spend your money on and invest your time in?

* What is at the very core of your life?

Whatever, whoever, has a hold on your heart — a greater, stronger, seemingly more satisfying hold than Jesus Christ — has become your god. Matthew Henry, a Puritan minister, described our human gods like this:

Pride makes a god of self, covetousness makes a god of money, sensuality makes a god of the belly; whatever is esteemed or loved, feared, or served, delighted in or depended on more than God, that (whatever it is) we do in effect make a god of.

The Bible gives us examples of these kinds of gods:

* Power: Habakkuk 1:11

* Money: 1 Timothy 6:9–10; Matthew 6:24

* Covetousness (things): Colossians 3:5

* Appetite: Philippians 3:19

* Pleasure: 1 Corinthians 10:7

The ultimate god behind every other god of our heart is self.

"For people will be lovers of self ... rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power" (2 Timothy 3:2–5). Oscar Wilde wrote, "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."

How can false worship develop in our heart? It starts with a cooling toward God, an indifference, a neglect, that allows our love for God to become lukewarm (Revelation 2:4; 3:16).

This leads to impatience with the ways of God, a dissatisfaction with his "Godness." We begin charging God foolishly for those things that disappoint us. "How could he let this happen? Why doesn't he answer? If I were God, I would ..." (Job 40:2, 8). This finally leads to estrangement from our heavenly Father because of the idols we have stored in our hearts (Ezekiel 14:1–5).

God is calling to you in this first commandment. He is calling you away from false worship back to himself. The God who brought you out of the Egypt of your old life now claims you. He gave himself fully at the cross. Does any other god deserve your heart?

OUR LASTING LEGACY

Living the First Commandment

Our wholehearted God expects a wholehearted response from us. He tells us that lukewarm Christians make him nauseous (Revelation 3:16). He is saying, "Don't run after foolish, empty gods. Deliberately reject these gods of your own making. I value you. Now learn to value me. Do not receive my grace in vain" (see 2 Corinthians 6:1).

God must be first in the heart of his child. He must be at the very center of our lives. Our desires, motives, actions, finances, sorrows, failures, successes — everything — must come under the declaration, "You are my God. I will not share my heart with any other."

How do we live this out? We begin, with God's help, to undeify the other gods in our lives. We no longer base our happiness and fulfillment on Jesus plus anything — a husband, children, reputation, house, health, achievements. What if God were the only thing you had in heaven and earth? Is he enough? Could you be happy?

When we choose God as our only God, everything starts to change. We begin to see everything as from God and everything as for God. "I have no good apart from you" (Psalm 16:2). Every task becomes a divine appointment; every meal becomes a feast on his goodness; every dollar earned and spent is gratefully received from the hand of God and yielded to him for his investment; every gift from him is an undeserved grace. We begin to experience authentic Christianity as miracle, not management.

Is your life a miracle? Are you living proof of what God can do, or do you seek to make yourself what you are, even as a Christian? God is saying positively to us in this first commandment, "You shall have me." It is only as we value and enjoy Christ more and more that the other gods in our heart begin to lose their grip on us, and the flavor of our faith presses on from management to miracle.

Giving the First Commandment

Let's think about how we can communicate the exclusivity of God to the children in our spheres of influence. This matters urgently today because the world scorns any teaching of the first commandment as intolerant and even dangerous. Our children need to see and hear the biblical alternative to cultural pluralism in our lives and from our mouths.

When God alone is our God, our foremost delight is to say yes to him. The first way a parent can give the first commandment is to be a Christ first person — in time, in money, in emotions, in moral standards, in church involvement — living out her delight in God's being her only God.

Do our schedules show us living out the first commandment? Do we enjoy Christ enough to spend time with him? Do we say no to other things so that we can linger in his presence? Do we value him enough to give him the best of our time and energy? Is he really our first and highest prize in life and in death (Psalm 63:1–8)?

Do our children see this in us? The primary way you can give this commandment to the next generation is to live out your "yes" to God, saying with your words, your actions, your all, "You, and you alone, are my God." The Westminster Larger Catechism puts it this way in question 104: "What are the duties required in the first commandment?" And the answer given is:

The duties required in the first commandment are, the knowing and acknowledging of God to be the only true God and our God; and to worship and glorify him accordingly by thinking, meditating, remembering, highly esteeming, honouring, adoring, choosing, loving, desiring, fearing of him; believing in him; trusting, hoping, delighting, rejoicing in him; being zealous for him; calling upon him, giving all praise and thanks and yielding all obedience and submission to him with the whole man; being careful in all things to please him, and sorrowful when in any thing he is offended; and walking humbly with him.

Not only do you need to give the first commandment by example; you also need to give it by teaching your child about the exclusive nature of God's love for him and leading him into a personal encounter with God's Son, Jesus Christ. People (both little people and big people) always relate better to a person, not a mere thing like a law. Salvation is not a thing, an idea, a method. It is a person — Jesus Christ!

Nearly any adult, by virtue of size and strength alone, can get a child to obey outwardly. But our goal should be a changed heart. We want to see our kids motivated by an inner, personal inspiration. Our aim should always be to help them approach God and begin to listen to God himself. Bring your child to the living God over and over again. Help him form a personal attachment to Jesus Christ. This is the most beautiful and beneficial of all legacies you could ever give a child.

We want to learn how to give the Ten Commandments to our children. A law always commands and prohibits. It governs our actions. A person, on the other hand, speaks, inspires, leads, understands. The message of the Bible is that God is alive. He is a person calling us into a living, personal relationship with him. Do your kids see a parent whose heart is captivated by her God? Are they motivated by your words, your actions, and your responses to life to find their delight in God, too?

The first commandment assumes that we will worship something — either the true God, or our own replacement — because we were made to worship. We love to be wowed, thrilled, dazzled. So do children. All children are born worshipers. From Barney to Britney Spears, a child's heart is captivated by what dazzles him, even at an early age.

As you bring your children to God, let there be no doubt in their minds who thrills you, who is worthy of your awe and worship! Hold out the glories of God to your children. Let them see how much he means to you. Tell your children how deeply you long for them to experience the wonders and delights of God. Don't feed their idols. Feed them from God's Word. Show them the cross, where idolaters are forgiven and liberated. Teach them God's ways and wisdom and rewards.

As you think through this first commandment, remember and remind your children that someday, when you both get to heaven, there will no longer be a struggle in your heart between God and other gods. You will be conformed to the image of his Son. Your whole being will be set apart to God. And you will be caught up in his glory and mercy and grace forever and ever and ever.

"You shall have no other gods before me." This loving law reveals the jealous love of God. It exposes our god substitutes. It calls us to say yes to him and to help our children say yes to God, too. And it holds out the promise of eternal wholehearted communion with the God who is more than enough to satisfy our every desire.

(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy"
by .
Copyright © 2007 Jani Ortlund.
Excerpted by permission of Good News Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS,
INTRODUCTION: AND GOD SPOKE,
1 NO OTHER GODS,
2 ACCEPTABLE WORSHIP,
3 EVERYTHING IN THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS,
4 NEXT REST STOP: SUNDAY,
5 IT ALL BEGINS AT HOME,
6 A FOUNTAIN OF LIFE,
7 MARRIAGE: MAYHEM OR MELODY?,
8 LIVING ON EARTH AS CITIZENS OF HEAVEN,
9 LOVING THE TRUTH,
10 REAL CONTENTMENT,
CONCLUSION: JESUS, PRICELESS TREASURE,
NOTES,

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Jani Ortlund has once again written a convicting work for women seeking after God. She clearly and thoughtfully demonstrates the powerful relevance the commandments hold for Christians who seek holiness by the power of the Holy Spirit."
—Mary K. Mohler, Director, Seminary Wives Institute, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; author, Growing in Gratitude

"Any parent or adult who ministers to children will find here a rich curriculum for themselves and for their children."
—Tasha Chapman, Professor of Educational Ministries, Covenant Theological Seminary; coauthor, The Politics of Ministry and Resilient Ministry

"Takes us right to the heart of God and offers biblical principles for us to practice and to pass on to our children so that we may live according to God's law."
—Margi Galloway, Minister to Women, Scottsdale Bible Church, Scottsdale, Arizona

"Jani Ortlund blows the dust off the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. Written with the wisdom and insight gained through a lifetime of teaching God's Word and raising four children who love the Lord, His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy equips readers not only to see themselves in the revealing light of God's Law, but also to guide children into loving God with their lives."
—Nancy Guthrie, author; Bible teacher