I Will Walk at Liberty for I Seek Thy Precepts

My Heart Is On Fire by Doug Apple - a short Christian devotional to open the Scriptures and make your heart burn within you!

Read the blog here: http://dougapple.blogspot.com/

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I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32)

How can you have more freedom by living with more restrictions?

It sounds counterintuitive. It sounds like nonsense.

We want to be free to do whatever we want, whenever we want. The more limits, the less freedom, right? It’s a one-to-one ratio.

Yet we find a different concept in the Bible.

Psalm 119:45 says, “I will walk at liberty; for I seek Thy precepts.”

The precepts are God’s commands, His laws, His principles, His boundaries, His guidelines. It’s God’s blueprint for how to live.

It says we can have liberty and freedom as we seek to live within His boundaries.

But there is something inside of us that doesn’t want boundaries. Tell a man not to cross a line and some part of him is itching to do it.

And God lets us cross the line. We have the free will to crisscross His boundaries all day long.

But there are consequences for crossing God’s boundaries, and one of the big ones is: less freedom.

“No, Doug. That sounds like MORE freedom.”

I know that’s what it looks like. I’m trying to live within God’s boundaries, and let’s say someone else isn’t. They can do things I won’t do. They can say things I won’t say. They can ingest things I won’t ingest, watch things I won’t watch, listen to things I won’t listen to, do things with their body I won’t do. They sound way more free than I do, right?

And that’s what makes this Bible verse sound absurd, “I will walk at liberty for I seek Thy precepts.”

Now let’s look at what Jesus said in John chapter eight. In verse 34 He said that whoever sins is a slave of sin.

Sin is anything outside God’s boundaries. We are all free to exercise our freedom INSIDE God’s boundaries, but as soon as we step OUTSIDE of His boundaries we are now in a territory called sin.

And Jesus said that whoever steps into that territory of sin becomes a slave of sin.

And being a slave is the opposite of being free.

That’s why Psalm 119:45 says, “I will walk at liberty for I seek Thy precepts.”

When we seek His precepts, we are seeking to know God’s boundaries. Where are the lines? I want to know where the lines are so I can stay in freedom and out of sin so I don’t become a slave of sin.

Now when we think of slavery, we think of being forced to do things we don’t want to do. Sin, on the other hand, is often what we DO want to do, so how is that slavery?

It’s slavery because listen: sin always traps you in circumstances you don’t want to be in.

I’ll say it again. Sin always traps you in circumstances you don’t want to be in. That’s the slavery.

So yeah, you might think of a sin and how much you want to do it. That’s called temptation. It’s the treat inside the trap. It’s the bait hiding the hook. God said don’t do it, but you WANT to do it, and you want to be free to do it, and God seems like a killjoy when He says, “Don’t.”

You can go ahead and do it, but if you sin, you’re going to find that there’s always WAY more to it than the thrill on the surface. Sin ALWAYS traps you in circumstances you don’t want to be in.

That’s why God gives us boundaries. He wants us to be free, and His words help us to live free. Psalm 119:103 says, “How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”

Verse 44 says, “So shall I keep Thy law continually for ever and ever.”

And verse 45 says, “And I will walk at liberty; for I seek Thy precepts.”

May God bless you today.

I’m Doug Apple.