How do we view God's laws?

An excerpt from the assignment I've just finished, do we feel God's laws are there to keep us in check, to tie us down? Does the church sometimes impose those feelings of the law on us??

“Then Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain and said, "This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel:  'You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.  Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites."

Exodus 19:3-6

God has already entered into His relationship with the Israelites before He speaks his law to them. Through intervening and saving them from Egypt He starts His relationship, therefore the giving of the law is based on the assumption that Israel is already ‘saved’. “The law, rather than being a means of salvation, was a means of helping Israel to become a “holy people” set apart to God (Exod 19:6), [because] it defines holy behaviour” (Sprinkle 2004, 236).

The laws of Exodus 19-24 are included as part of the narrative of God establishing a relationship with Israel. The narrative of the Sinai Covenant is a continuation of the exodus story, where God has initiated a personal relationship with His people “so that Israel will come to know Yahweh as their God (Exod 16:12)”.