Love for the Torah

Theodore Tolby's brilliant and dedicated
 painting, "Love for the Torah."

I do not live as I do because I will get in trouble if I don't. I live as I do because Body, Soul and Spirit I am a created being. My Creator is not distant, but active. My life is entwined with His reality. The closer I am to the Creator, the more human I become. How can that be? If I am closer to the Divine that I am more human? Because humanity is meant to be entwined with the Divine... both physically and spiritually. The gap was bridged when Jesus set foot on this earth. The Law was broken when Jesus destroyed the wall separating physical and spiritual salvation. It was broken when Jesus fulfilled the entire Mosaic commandment... and in doing so made it possible for me to be alive. Do I live as I should? Certainly not. I am still apart of a broken and depraved world. "Creation groans..." We as an entire creation, the rocks, the trees, the birds, the children, groan because we know that something is not right. 

In this world I will never be completely whole. I will never be able to look just like Jesus. I am a sinner. Do not console me. I am a stubborn, disgusting, selfish sinner. That is what I am. Yet, in this reality, what freedom! What freedom I have because I cannot do it... no longer am I subject to attempting to follow every passage in the law because I cannot do it, and yet I will still be saved! Because, by the grace and power of the One who created me, I am being restored but not by my own works. Yet, my flesh and my soul remain just as valuable, equally valuable, whether I stand or fall. And so, with creation I give testimony that my value is bestowed upon me not by my obedience of the law, but by the only one who can give value because He Himself CREATED value. 

And now, from where I stand, free from the law, I can see its beauty. And I treasure God's commands in my heart not because I need something to obey but because they are His words, and I can see in them a life that I was meant to live! They bring me freedom from the chaos and hellishness of a world with no authority. In them I find purity and peace. So, my soul is subject to the Spirit who lives within, and my flesh moves and bows to the words of a God who walked the same earth...