daily-devotionalsReading: “Being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ.”—1 Corinthians 9:21

To you who have been brought under the condemnation of God’s holy law and have been enabled, through sovereign grace, to take refuge in the person, blood, and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ; to you, justification by faith has proved the best of all motives to keep the law of God. You know yourself to be bought with a price; and you know therefore, that you are the Lord’s property, both by his purchase, and by your voluntary surrender. It is your desire “to glorify God in thy body and in thy spirit, which are his.”

But while you know that you are never to seek justification by the deeds of the law; yet your heart delights in the reality that you are “not without law to God, but under the law to Christ.” For though the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made thee free from the law of sin and death; yet while through the law, you are dead to the law that you might live unto Christ. And it is by the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelling in you that the deeds of the body are mortified, and the soul lives.

Sweet consideration—that you are not working for life, but from life; not seeking to be justified by the deeds of the law, but from Christ’s justification you daily show you are not without law to God, but under the law to Christ.

Taken from The Poor Man’s Evening and Morning Portions by Rev. Robert Hawker, Works, Vol. 8; 1830. Edited by Aaron Dunlop for thinkgospel.com ©2013.