2 Cor 3:3 (NIV) You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Another major change took place when God moved from the external to the internal. When He wrote His laws in stone, we read them and only worried about getting caught. We had no real desire to live them. We just didn’t want to suffer the penalty of breaking them.

We all know the difference between a speed limit sign and a speed limit sign with a police car parked beside it. We consider the speed limit sign to be a suggestion.

The officer is the law. Nothing changed in our heart. What happens when we get far enough away that we can no longer be seen by the police officer? We read the sign. We still remember what the speed limit is. However, we are late for a meeting and we are going to get into a lot of trouble if we don’t hurry up and get there. Did the law transform us? No, it just scared us. That was the fear that the law produces. A fear of punishment; a fear of getting caught.

God doesn’t want His ministers being good only when they are afraid of getting caught. He wants them living the life of righteousness all the time, whether people are watching or not. Jesus is leading us into a life and ministry that is who we are not who we are trying to be. He is motivating us to live and minister because that is Who Jesus is in and through us. We would always live according to the Law and whether or not we might get caught. Jesus will always be living in and through us by making us into that person who is doing that ministry.