Romans 5:13 (NLT)

“Yes, people sinned even before the law was given. But it was not counted as sin because there was not yet any law to break.”

Sin is not only sin when it is known and reported. Even before the law was given, people had been sinning different types of sins, and although there were no evident laws to plainly show that they were sinning, it did not remove the fact that they were indeed sinning. People may be making God unhappy without calling their actions sinful because no law was broken, but sin is not known or produced by the law; the presence of sin is only exposed because of the law.

Don’t wait for the law therefore to discover where your life may be displeasing to God. There may be many different ways that we break God’s heart yet we may have no coded or verifiable evidence that we are doing something wrong. We need to therefore go beyond the law to sense the heart of God on issues, and respond to God accordingly based on that revelation. The spiritual man starts from, but goes beyond the clear precepts of the Word of God, and always seeks to fulfill the secret desires of God.

“Lord, may I be such a spiritual man, who looks beyond the external code of the Word, and who seeks Your heart’s desire in all things.”