This is the glorious promise of the New Covenant instigated by the very death and resurrection of God’s own Son. It is that precious sacrifice that empowers us to act like God, not because of external instructions but because we are one with him. We have the joyous privilege of going beyond the cold letter of the law to the warm heart of God. Let’s never look longingly back to the old days of rules.

Consider these exciting Scriptures:

Jeremiah 31:31 “The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. (32) It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them . . . (33) This is the covenant I will make . . . I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. (34) No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

Jeremiah 32:38 They will be my people, and I will be their God. (39) I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after them. (40) I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. (41) I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.

Ezekiel 36: 26 I will give you a new heart . . . (27) And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

The seed of this supernatural transformation comes in an instant, but it must grow within us through nurturing our relationship with God. The moment we were born into God’s family we became God’s children, complete with, as it were, divine genes. In our very nature is now his very nature – his selflessness and goodness and his passion for what is right. But when we were born physically we had a lot of growing to do. Likewise, we must grow spiritually. Just as in the natural we kept growing stronger and wiser and more like the father whose genes we bore, so in the spiritual.

God’s selfless love has been released within us (Romans 5:5) but will we suppress it, or will we nurture it until it saturates our thinking and actions?

We were not made for divine rules, but for divine relationship. We were not made to be programmed by a set of instructions like a robot. We were made to enjoy the most exciting and dynamic of relationships – intimacy with God.

God wants us not as mindless beasts who only understand a whip, but as intelligent people who understand that God’s every wish for us is a manifestation of his selfless wisdom and his yearning for us to have the best. Neither does he want us acting like a stubborn two-year-old, forever on the verge of doing something dangerously stupid, and needing to be controlled by crude, stern commands. Rather, he wants us like a lover thrilled to respond to his gentlest whispers.

Galatians 5:16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

To sin is to break God’s heart. It is to turn against the One who tenderly and passionately loves us. It is to torture again the One who suffered the horror of crucifixion because of our earlier sins. Anyone using the precious privilege of intimacy with God as a pretext for sin, is not only despicable but is plummeting toward the wrath of God. (We too often forget how much the New Testament emphasizes the wrath of God.)

Any behavior that is less than wholesome grieves our Holy Lord. Right in the middle of a long list of moral directions, Scripture slips in this:

Ephesians 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.

But those who know their God keep themselves pure, even as he is pure. Live life to the full in the joy of intimacy with God.

Related pages

Jesus our Brother More about having God’s genes

Some issues we often wish the Bible said more about:

Dating Guidelines

Is it Perverted? (For Marrieds)

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