April 23rd, 2008
A Moral Basis?
“For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not of works, so that no one can boast.”
Ephesians 2:8-9
It’s been beautiful weather!!!!! I love it. This week Tim and I have taken a few hours here and there to do “spring clean-up.” OK, actually, it’s really fall clean-up because we never did get out last fall to rake up all the leaves! So, this spring we have TONS of leaves from our maple trees to pick up before grass and new things can grow. So, are you ready to hear some thoughts? REMEMBER: the title of my blog is, “I claim NO answers, just many thoughts.” I do not claim to have all of this sorted out, but I thought I would just let you ponder with me. If you have any insights or comments on this, please feel free to write them!
Leaves fall. They do not float into outerspace. Why? Because of gravity. I am NOT a scientist, but I do know enough to say that there are physical laws which undergird our existence on this planet. Although we may fight the law, it will win out in the end. Take, for example, the law that says everything progresses from order to disorder (yes, that’s a scientific law not just an observation of my living room! hehe). We can fight that. We get a new rug. We can fight its destruction by vacuuming it, taking off our shoes to walk on it, or even closing the room off so nothing can touch it. However, the rug will slowly decay. The physical laws of the universe can be fought, but they will always win.
I believe God created the physical laws of the universe. Couldn’t the creator of those laws also have established moral laws on which our existence is based? I am not going to claim to know all the laws, but the 10 commandments may not just be suggestions by God to be obeyed, but perhaps they are the basic moral fabric of human existence. We can fight them – adultery happens, murder occurs, we don’t always put God first. But, if these are the basis of our existence, then, although we fight them, we will not win.
This week I received a mailing from the Billy Graham society which stated that there are 19 million new STD’s each year (I think that was the statistic – I threw away the letter after reading it – oops). Without adultery or promiscuity, STD’s would have no way of spreading or developing into new strains. We can fight the law of being faithful to your spouse, but we will not win.
We live in a society where everyone wants to come up with their own right and wrong. “I-won’t-condemn-you-if-you-don’t-condemn-me” morality. Instead of just saying, “God said this was right,” perhaps we can go further and say that what is right is right not just because the Bible said it, but because of the moral laws of our existence (which God did set in place).
Probably some of you are reading this and thinking, “Yea, so what? That’s obvious.” I guess for me it puts God’s laws in a whole new light. However, I will refer back to the opening verse. We are not saved by any of these laws. Obeying these laws does not get us to heaven or into a relationship with God – obeying them may just be showing our faith in the one who created the moral laws. Obeying them may be the only way to earthly “peace” because we are not fighting the laws of existence. Only God’s grace can save us. But that’s for another blog…
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:20 pm
To me your basic idea here makes sense. Another way to think of it might be that we’ve been created such that it’s impossible for us to be both immoral and truly happy and at peace.
April 30th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Your thoughts go along with something I’ve been learning and beginning to see a lot more clearly these days. For awhile now, God has been showing me that almost all consequences (good or bad) that we deal with in our lives are due to the choices we have made. The more He teaches me about this principle of reaping what we’ve sown, I see that more and more to be true. Even though some of the people I’ve said this to don’t like to hear it, I believe that it’s probably 99 point something percent that the situations we are in now are based on the choices we’ve made somewhere in the past (or the choices our ancestors made) and God has allowed the circumstances for our good. (people get upset about cancers and other tragedies when you say that) but even those sometimes, could be that we haven’t made the Godly choices to take care of our bodies (temples) the way God had planned. Sometimes, I think we are too quick to blame Satan and sin on our situations. We really do have a lot of control over our choices and therefore, our futures - according to God’s principles and will for our lives.