Why?

Read Deuteronomy 26
Focus on verse 18-19

When my children were growing up – learning to walk and run – they wanted to run everywhere. There were some places that we did not allow them to run, and they would typically protest quite adamantly. They did not understand that the reason we did not let them run into the middle of a busy street was not because we wanted to curb their fun, but because we wanted them to survive to adulthood.
The love a parent has for a child often motivates the parent to restrain the behavior of the child not because the parent doesn’t want the child to be happy, but because he or she does want the child to be happy. What the child doesn’t understand is that the parent can see more of the picture than the child. The parent’s life experience and knowledge helps the parent to recognize harmful or dangerous situations and behaviors that the child does not recognize. It is for this reason that little Suzy is not allowed to play on the highway – even if she wants to.
In today’s reading Moses explains this principle to the people of Israel – that the laws that God commands them to obey are not designed to cramp their style, but to keep them from destroying themselves and to help them experience life more fully.

And the Lord has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments, and that he will set you in praise and in fame and in honor high above all nations that he has made, and that you shall be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised.” (v. 18-19)

God did give His people many commands and statutes to obey, and He insisted on meticulous obedience to these laws. We look at these through our twentieth century eyes and wonder what the point of it all might have been. Is it merely to keep His people under His oppression? Is it to lay impossible burdens on their shoulders so that they become weary and fail to keep them and so that He can justify punishing them? I cannot imagine that God, who claims to love His people, would have such a motive? So if this is not His motive, then what is?
In verse 19 we have what I suspect is the answer: It is so that He can “set them in praise and in fame and in honor high above all nations that he had made, and that they might be a holy people – set apart unto Him”. So you see, His insistence that they keep His statutes is motivated by the same principle that motivates a responsible parent from keeping little Suzy from running onto a busy highway…so that they survive, and keep themselves in a position of blessing. So that He might elevate them above all other people in the earth.
How does this then translate to those who now follow Christ in this age of grace? It is still related to obedience, but the motive is different. In this age of grace the difference between one who is “saved by grace” and the one who is “still under the law” is nothing more than the motivation that drives them to pursue holy living. The one who is under the law is driven by the notion that their actions will earn sufficient favor with God to gain them access to eternity with Him. The one who is saved by grace is driven to obey out of gratitude, recognizing that no amount of action could possibly earn enough favor with God because, Christ has by His death and resurrection, already earned all the favor with God that is needed to place in right standing, all those who choose to believe and trust in Him.
Interestingly, the person motivated by keeping the law and the person motivated by faith in God’s grace will often look very similar on the outside. They are both sincerely in pursuit of obedience to God — and both will fall short of achieving that end — yet one owns the gift of eternal life, while the other has not yet obtained it, and the difference has everything to do with the motivation of the person’s heart.
I would add, as a final thought, that I do not presume to know what the heart of another person might hold. That area of judgment is above my pay grade — reserved for God alone. My responsibility is to examine my own heart and motivation and respond according to what God shows me is there.