Because I Love You . . .

Because I Love You . . .

The LORD our God commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear him so he can continue to bless us and preserve our lives, as he has done to this day.

Deuteronomy 6:24

How joyful are those who fear the LORD and delight in obeying his commands. Their children will be successful everywhere; an entire generation of godly people will be blessed.

Psalm 112:1-2

Open my eyes to see the wonderful truths in your instructions.

Psalm 119:18

One of the things that happens on the first day of school is that you learn the rules. Sometimes it can seem that classroom rules, playground rules, house rules, every kind of rules are just meant to ruin our fun. Some people see the rules God gave us for living in the same way—as unreasonable rules set by a strict God that are meant to take the fun out of life. But the rules God gave us in the Ten Commandments aren’t meant to take anything from us. They’re a gift to us, an expression of God’s love toward us.

God did not lean out of heaven one day thinking, These people are having too much fun, and then proceed to give us a to-do list to make us miserable. God saw people continually ruining their lives by chasing after what they thought would make them happy apart from him. So he gave us a light that points out what will hurt us, a set of boundaries that keep us close to him, and a clear standard for judging our thinking and behavior. The Ten Commandments are the most complete description of absolute good that people have ever been given. Through them we learn that we need to bend our lives to conform to that goodness, not redefine good to fit our crookedness. The law is like a mirror that shows us what we really are—lawbreakers who desperately need forgiveness for our failures and who need a perfection that we can’t get on our own. Without the law, we wouldn’t see how much we need Jesus and how much he loves us.

DISCUSSION STARTERS

What loving purpose can you see in the rules in your classroom or at home?

What do God’s rules tell us about God himself?

Do you take the Ten Commandments seriously? What shows that?