Jani Ortlund - His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy: Living the Ten Commandments and Giving Them to Our Children

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Jani Ortlund has once again written a convicting work for women seeking after God. She addresses each of the Ten Commandments and challenges us to do some serious soul searching. She clearly and thought-fully demonstrates the powerful relevance the commandments hold for Christians who seek holiness by the power of the Holy Spirit.

MARY K. MOHLER, Founder and Director, Seminary Wives Institute

Jani Ortlund blows the dust off the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. Written with the wisdom and insight gained through a lifetime of teaching Gods Word and raising four children who love the Lord, His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy equips readers not only to see themselves in the revealing light of Gods Law, but also to guide children into loving God with their lives.

NANCY GUTHRIE, Bible teacher; author, Seeing Jesus in the Old Testament Bible Study Series

Ortlund explores the richness of Gods grace to us and to our children in each of the Ten Commandments. Her warm, devotional style helps move us to respond to Gods love by obeying his laws. The creative childrens exercises provide engaging questions, crafts, and memorable metaphors that will help children to understand more fully our covenantal God and his Word to us. Any parent or adult who ministers with children will find here a rich curriculum.

TASHA CHAPMAN, Director of Educational Studies and Professor of educational ministries, Covenant Theological Seminary

Jani Ortland takes us right to the heart of God and offers biblical principles for us to practice and to pass on to our children, so that we may live according to Gods law.

MARGI GALLOWAY, Minister to Women, Scottsdale Bible Church, Arizona

His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy: Living the Ten Commandmentsand Giving Them to Our Children

Copyright 2007 by Jani Ortlund

Published by Crossway Books
a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers
1300 Crescent Street
Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Georgia Bateman

Cover photo: iStock

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, EnglishStandard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture references marked NIV are from The Holy Bible: New InternationalVersion. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

The NIV and New International Version trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society.

Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-58134-868-2
ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-2000-6
PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-0188-3
Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-0821-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ortlund, Jani
His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy : Living the Ten Commandments and Giving Them to Our Children / Jani Ortlund.
p. cm.
ISBN 13: 978-1-58134-868-2 (tpb)
1. Ten commandments. 2. Christian educationHome training. I. Title.
BV4655.O78 2007
241.5'2dc22

2006102867

To my beloved mother-in-law

ANNE ORTLUND.

Thank you for a lifetime of loving God

with all your heart

and giving his Word with all your strength.

Your legacy lives on.

CONTENTS

EXODUS 20:317

1. You shall have no other gods before me.

2. You shall not make for yourself a carved image.... For I the LORD your God am a jealous God.

3. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

5. Honor your father and your mother.

6. You shall not murder.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

10. You shall not covet... anything that is your neighbors.

MEMORY VERSES

Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.

PSALM 119:18

Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. For it is no empty word for you, but your very life.

DEUTERONOMY 32:4647

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.

MATTHEW 22:3740

Praise the LORD!

Blessed is the man who fears the LORD,

who greatly delights in his commandments!

His offspring will be mighty in the land;

the generation of the upright will be blessed.

PSALM 112:1-2

H is offspring will be mighty in the land... blessed. What mother doesnt hope that for her children? Raising up children who are leaders both in and outside their homes, respected, courageous, and surrounded by Gods blessing is a parents deepest desire.

The psalmist, inspired by the Holy Spirit, tells us that one of the keys to raising godly, mighty, blessed children is found in a mans fearing the Lord and taking great delight in his commandments. Why should we? How can we? That is the message of this book.

His Loving Law, Our Lasting Legacy will invite you into deeper delight in God as we consider how he loves us through the Ten Commandments. The purpose of this book is to help you pass on that delight to the children in your world.

ALL THESE WORDS

And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the LORD your God, who, brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. (Exodus 20:12)

It had been three months since the children of Israel had been rescued from their slavery to Pharaoh. In that short time they had:

witnessed the miracles of the plagues and the Passover (Exodus 7:112:32);

been led by the steadfast love of the Lord as he went before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Exodus 13:1722);

experienced a never-to-be repeated deliverance from their enemies as the Egyptian army was swallowed up in the Red Sea (Exodus 14:530);