Be Still - January 19, 2023

Deuteronomy 6: 18, 19 Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land that the Lord promised on oath to your forefathers, thrusting out all your enemies before you, as the Lord said. (NIV)

It is never wrong to be right.*

This sounds like the kind of promise we should all want to claim: Do what is right and good so that it may go well with you. The truth is, doing right and good does not guarantee that all will go well with you. God never promised us it would. In these verses, he is making a specific pledge to the Israelites who were preparing to cross the Jordan River into the Promised Land – and you might want to refresh your memory about what occurred between the making of this promise and the fulfillment of it. Doing right and good demanded a lot more from them than just being nice to each other.

We are reminded of the difference between living under the Law and living under grace. When Jesus fulfilled the Law – and canceled our obligation to it – he did not repeal the necessity to do right and good; he just eliminated it as the path to salvation. As one writer observes:  “The watchwords for blessing under the Old Covenant were earning and deserving; under the New Covenant, blessing comes by believing and receiving.”*

Doing right and good is still the right thing to do. But we do it because we love God and want to please him, not because we hope it will save us. 

God’s law is so perfect and absolute that no one can achieve righteousness. Yet God’s grace is so great that we do not have to.*