The Ten Commandments, which can be found in Exodus 20:1-17, were written in stone and all of Israel was commanded to follow them when Moses came down from Mount Sinai.

In Ezekiel 11:19 we hear the Lord saying, “I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.”  And Galatians 5:16 says, “So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves (NLT).”

The amazing thing about The Ten Commandments is how it identifies sin in our hearts.  Not one man, woman or child could look into those 10 statements and not see their evil within it.  God knew this when He wrote it. The law becomes like a mirror to the SIN SICK heart, showing it what it already knows of itself and its condition.

But that is not the end of the story. God has always had a redemptive plan even in the giving of these 10 laws.  He was foreseeing the coming of His son into the earth and how salvation would come to all through His great sacrifice.

Keeping The Ten Commandments is not my focus in life, but rather my focus is living a life pleasing to the Lord. 

If I should make a mistake I am quick to repent of it.

My focus is on having Holy Spirit guide my steps and life.

There are times that I am overwhelmed with life as it is dealt out to me.  There seems to be a steady barrage at times of temptations and evil, and yet I am not destroyed or overcome by the evil I face.

The enemy will roam and try to destroy but as long as my gaze is upon the Lord I will succeed in the face of every trial. The Lord always provides a way forward and out.

It is not that I live trying to keep the letter of the law found in The Ten Commandments, but rather when I walk in Holy Spirit, my life begins to look a lot cleaner.  It is not me succeeding in keeping the law but rather by walking in the spirit, Jesus inside my heart keeps me from sin.

It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me and He is able to keep the law completely.  It is the Spirit of God in me that keeps me from sin and not me.

Every time I face a temptation or a trial I ask the Lord to show me the way out.  When I humble myself to His voice and carry out His will I succeed in the face of many trials, temptations and snares that the enemy would have for me.  As long as my gaze is upon the Lord, I remain in the vine and in His voice is fullness of joy.

I am not sure if I am succeeding in relating these thoughts.  It could be that by listening to Holy Spirit we walk away from many of the trials we would face otherwise.  It isn’t that He tells us to be clean and we listen to Him and are clean.

He might say something like “worship me in the moment” and as you worship him, you are transported away from sin and even through time.  Months pass by and you have not struggled at all with your former sin–all because your focus was on worshiping God and not the sin.

And it wasn’t your worship at all that set you free, but only your obedience to obey a word from the Lord.

He said go down to the river and dip yourself seven times and you will come up clean.  You said, “But God that is one dirty river and there are cleaner rivers in my country of Canada.  Let me go to the river in my own community, it is cleaner.”

But the word wasn’t to go to a river in Canada.  The word was to dip in the Jordan.

The same act of dipping in one river would not produce freedom, but dipping in the river God told you to dip in produces freedom.

When God speaks there is always freedom, even when you don’t necessarily like His plan.  But if you carry out that plan and submit yourself to it–rid your heart of rebellion– you will be free, because he whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

Obedience gets rid of your heart of stone and allows God to put a heart of flesh within you.

Through obedience to the Spirit and not the letter of the law our natures are transformed by God and by no power of our own.  When we are in the spirit it is very difficult to sin. Praise God!