Faith Tidbit #34

So, if, as we said yesterday, we can't keep the commands we must keep to avoid losing the life only God can give, why does God bother giving us the Ten Commandments? The answer is that God gives us His law as a mirror, a means by which we can see ourselves as we really are, not as we pretend to be. "Through the law," the Bible says, "comes the knowledge of sin." When we honestly look at the law and how far we are from keeping it, we see how far we are from God and how filled with futility our lives are going to be, now and in eternity. Wrestling honestly with God's law is like the bracing first step of all Twelve Step programs: We are incapable of loving God completely or of loving others as we love ourselves. If the Ten Commandments were the only thing God revealed about Himself to the human race, life would be pointless.