Part 3: The Heart!
The King. The Law. The Heart!
Before we move into the Heart, we must hold onto what we established in The King Part 1 and what we uncovered in The Law Part 2.
Without understanding the heart of the Father, we will mistake conviction for rejection, obedience for performance, and holiness for perfectionism.
If you haven’t sat with those pours yet, I encourage you to click the titles above and read those first.
In Part 3, we will discover that the deeper issue was never just behavior.
It was always the heart.
Part 3: The Heart!
Paul asked in Galatians 3:19, “What purpose then does the law serve?” What a weighty question.
I’ve often found myself perplexed by the purpose of the law and the tension between Old Testament law and New Testament grace. Prayerfully, I think we can walk through this slowly together, so that we can get to the heart of the matter.
Here’s what we know; before Exodus 20, before the Law was ever given:
Abraham already had relationship with God.
Promise already existed.
Faith was already active and on full display.
Humanity was already being received by God before rules were introduced.
That alone reinforces the reoccurring theme in The Law. Part 2, that “the law was never meant to replace relationship”. It was meant to expose sin, establish order, reveal God’s holiness, and ultimately expose humanity’s need for Him.
Think about human law for a moment.
Laws are meant to govern people and their behavior.
For example, laws have been created against theft and violence, because both infractions exist. The laws did not create this problem; it revealed the problem to us. Laws, whether it’s spiritual laws or human laws, expose predicated behavior that needs to be eliminated or governed.
How often do you unknowingly break laws? National laws. State laws. City ordinances. Most of us don’t know all the laws created to govern our behavior. So how could we perfectly keep them?
Bible scholars estimate that there are 613 total laws throughout Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Of those, 248 are positive commands, like “thou shall”; while 365 are “thou shall not”.
Many of us can barely remember what we ate last week, so what are the chances of us remembering and abiding by 613 rules?
I was teaching my children the Ten commandments and encouraging them to commit it to memory. While teaching them, I found myself constantly referring to Scripture, not only to remember them accurately, but because I kept experiencing conviction and “ah-ha” moments.
Naturally, my children had tons of questions and although I was conflicted, I encouraged them to ask anyway. Through answering their questions I noticed a pattern. I found myself repenting constantly. I was hyper-aware of every failure, every flaw, and every shortcoming.
Meanwhile, my children started saying things like, “Ooooh, you broke the commandment. God doesn’t like that.”
And while God does care about holiness, I know with certainty He never intended for it to become ammunition for self-righteousness or condemnation. Jesus addressed that constantly with the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes.
Before I go any further, I need to confess something honestly: I struggled deeply with perfectionism by way of self-righteousness and condemnation.
At the root of it was a misunderstanding. I wanted to obey God sincerely, but I did not yet understand that relationship was key.
As a child, I believed perfection came through performance.
If I made good grades, I was good.
If I obeyed externally, I was good.
If I attended church faithfully, served consistently, read my Bible daily, accepted everyone, never judged anyone, and kept myself “together,” then maybe I could become perfect; like Christ.
But what I thought was righteousness slowly turned into performance.
I became a people pleaser.
A friend of the world.
Someone without healthy boundaries because I thought unconditional acceptance was the same thing as love.
The Law exposed the error of my thoughts, but even with that type of exposure, it did not transform me. It only made it abundantly clear that I could not stop sinning.
Galatians 3:2-3 (NKJV)
2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
Paul’s question is piercing.
Did God give us His Spirit because we performed perfectly? Or because we believed?
The answer is faith, which is belief.
And then Paul pushes even deeper: if we began by the Spirit, why are we now trying to mature through striving, performance, and self-effort?
That was the trap I fell into.
I didn’t have an understanding that I started by grace and with grace. Somehow, I convinced myself that I must maintain good standing with God by checking the boxes of good deeds, accomplishments, and expectations.
One of Paul’s strongest warnings against self-righteous law keeping and box checking appears here:
Galatians 3:10-12 (NKJV)
10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.” 11 But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.” 12 Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them shall live by them.”
Paul is not calling the Law evil. He is revealing the impossibility of obtaining righteousness by living by the law. No man is just who lives by the law, because the just lives by faith.
And if righteousness depends upon flawless obedience to the law, then every single one of us fails.
And, I don’t know about you, but when I fail, my instinct is often self-punishment. I replay conversations in my mind word for word. I over analyze. I obsess over what I should have done differently. I condemn myself internally for days.
That is not transformation.
That is torment.
It leads to self-condemnation which leads to judging others with unbalanced scales. Another sin. Smh.
The Law exposes our sins and magnifies our failure, none of this heals our hearts or address the root of the sin.
So I return to the opening question:
What purpose then does the law serve?
Galatians 3:19 (NKJV)
What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgression, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made…
Transgression means a violation of a command or boundary.
Sin already existed before the law. The law simply gave sin language, clarity, and definition.
Remember, Israel had just come out of slavery, oppression, paganism, chaos, and polytheism. They were physically free, but Egypt was still deeply embedded in their thinking and behavior.
So the law became formation.
God was teaching holiness, order, justice, worship, and covenant living.
He was forming a people who reflected His nature instead of the surrounding nations.
But despite the Law, Israel continually failed.
And honestly?
So do we.
Humanity has ALWAYS struggled with external obedience because the deeper issue was never simply behavior.
It was — and still is — the HEART.
Galatians 3:24-25
24 Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.
As an educator, this scripture speaks to me deeply
A tutor is a private teacher who provides personalized, supplemental instruction when foundational understanding is missing.
In education:
Tier 1 instruction is high quality, core instruction provided to everyone at the same level, at the same time.
Tier 2 instruction is supplemental, or something added to make up for a deficiency. This supports students who need help and are falling behind.
Tier 3 is the most intensive and individualized intervention for students who have not responded to the supplemental support in tier 2 and need deeper help.
God is so intentional.
In the “Universe-ity of Earth”, humanity received:
Tier 1: Do NOT eat from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Obey me. Love me. Commune with me. Take dominion over the earth.
Tier 2: The LAW. Supplemental instructions-exposed our sins and revealed humanities inability to sustain holiness apart from God.
Tier 3: JESUS!!!!
The Law was never the final answer.
It was the tutor pointing us toward the Savior.
The Law could tell humanity what holiness looked like.
But only Christ could transform the heart to actually desire it. At the heart of the law is Christ and in the heart of the believer is Christ.
Matthew 5:17 (NKJV)
17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.
The word fulfilled means to carry out a promise, satisfy a requirement, or bring a desire to realization (dictionary.com)
Jesus fulfilled every requirement humanity could never fulfill on its own.
The Law still reveals God’s holiness and heart, but righteousness is no longer obtained through perfect rule-keeping. It is received through faith in Christ, who fulfilled what humanity never could.
And I think this is where many of us still struggle.
If we do not truly believe we belong to God, we will spend our entire lives performing for acceptance we already have access to through Christ.
The King already said in Exodus 19:4:
“I brought you to Myself.”
He already declared Himself Judge, Lawgiver, King, and Savior in Isaiah 33:22.
The Law was never meant to replace Him.
From the very beginning, God’s desire was always relationship:
that humanity would reflect His image,
walk with Him,
commune with Him,
and obey Him from transformed hearts.
Even when humanity failed, He continued making provision.
He continued extending mercy.
He continued calling people His own.
What a beautiful Father to behold.
What a wise King to encounter.
How gracious is God that we are still considered?
My God…
Abba,
I feel so overwhelmed by your love and adoration for someone as ungrateful as myself. I have fallen short over and over again, trying to perform for righteousness, becoming a friend of the world, embracing idols; yet you patiently waited for me. Yet, you saw the me that you created in your image, not the lie that I believed from the enemy. You saw me. You waited for me. You had a plan the entire time. I am forever grateful. My words fail me when I try to express how deeply grateful I am for your love and the fact that I can never reciprocate the magnitude of it…thank you. You’ve trusted me with this series. You’ve poured revelation into me, while I was still learning You, myself. The only thing I did was say yes. That was the depth of my sacrifice. Again, words fell me. You took my lack of understanding of your Kingdom and taught me as I agreed to teach others. I am again overwhelmed by your love, your thoroughness.
For everyone that you have reached through this, I pray that truth becomes their cornerstone. I pray, Abba, that their eyes are now open to see truth, hear truth, and believe truth. I pray that this becomes the foundation of sound doctrine for them and generations to come. I pray that they recognize that You are King. Although we witness a perverse kingdom here on earth, I pray that beyond the eyes, they are able to see what is real and what has been revealed. Keep each and everyone of us close to you. You are not the One who walks off, it is us, who hides from you in shame. This day Abba, I command shame to leave, and in the absence of it let the authenticity of a beautiful relationship between You and humanity bloom and blossom as one seed is dropped, watered, and nurtured, so shall many others, one after its own kind reciprocating the initial order of creation. Abba, I love you, and I thank you.
In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
Stay close 🤍☕️
Scriptures to sip:
-Galatians 3
-Matthew 5:17
