Know God, Know Peace

I was looking over old posts, and as I read over my first blog post I had an epiphany.

In Romans, Paul speaks much about and how without faith, its keeping is dead.¹

So in other words, we can't keep the law without faith, even if we go to church every weekend or do good acts of kindness, what we do is worthless if we do not have faith. I also thought about how God shows us through His word that without faith it is impossible to please Him. ²
That's kind of scary to me, it really cuts deep in the sense that all my efforts for His kingdom are worthless if I don't have my heart completely in my efforts.³
I also thought about the last verse of my first blog posting, it says "Great peace have those who love your law, and nothing causes them to stumble."⁴
I thought about what it means to love the law and I remembered the words of John,
    "But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love...God is love, and all who live in        love live in God, and God lives in them."⁵

In other words,
we need
faith for the law
faith for the law of love = love for God⁶

it is the law of love, because it is not just a set of rules, without love/God, the law can be tossed and flipped and completely distorted,⁷
e.g. This is what happened with the Pharisees, they forgot about the God whom they served, just like the Israelites did so many times in the wilderness [Old Testament] and ended up focusing on trivial matters like not washing your hands before eating.⁸
Of course Jesus knew the importance of this verse, but like the all-knowing and heart-searching God that He is, He pointed out what was really going on in the heart of the matter: He replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?" ⁸
The Pharisees were so set in on themselves, on the god of self-dependence they had created that they did not even recognize their Saviour when He came, as the the writings that they were supposed to know inside and out well said; "Well then, if you teach others, why don't you teach yourself?"⁹

What we must remember:
God = love⁵
faith for the law of God = Godliness/knowing true love
knowing true love = knowing true peace
love for the law = great peace⁴
true keeping of the law = great peace
if God = love, then it is in Godly keeping of the law that we come to know peace.

   When we keep the law of love in faith, we will get to know love better and experience great peace.

Thank you God for this revelation! :)

¹ Romans 3:27
² Hebrews 11:6
³ Mark 12:30
⁴ Psalms 119:165
⁵ 1 John 4:8, 16 [latter]
⁶ 1 John 5:3
⁷ 1 John 2:3-5
⁸ Matthew 15:2,3
⁸ Romans 2:21