God did not give His law to us in order to rain on our parade, or for the purpose of taking all the joy out of our lives. God’s law was given to deter us from the self-worship that results in broken relationships, shattered families, as well as dysfunctional communities. When Jesus was asked to explain what commandment was the greatest,
Jesus replied: 37" 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matt 22: 37- 40).
As you can see the commandments were given for the purpose of creating healthy loving relationships first with God and then with our neighbors’. Can you imagine with me what this world would be like if everyone everywhere throughout the world kept these two commands perfectly; earth would be a utopia, love would reign supreme, and the earth would be at peace? God did not give his commands to us to take the joy out of our lives, but to show us the way to a world without evil, a world of peace and genuine love. Now none of us loves perfectly in this world therefore we will continue to live at odds with our Creator if we reject Jesus the only Saviour. Neighbors will continue to fight neighbors, and nations will continue to be at war with nations. Therefore none of us can point the finger at others as if they are the problem for we have all been unloving and have added to the sin problem. Humanity will never come to a place where we will love again perfectly in this present fallen world because our relationship with the God of love has been broken through our self-centered obsession. Therefore if God were to allow one unloving self- worshipping person into His coming Kingdom of love, that one individual would carry within them the seed of rebellion that would infect the world once again with evil, war, and fractured relationships. God would not be a God of love and righteousness if he allowed those into His kingdom who would once again pollute His perfect world. So we need to stop accusing God of being unloving for banishing all rebels to hell, for if He were to allow one rebel in heaven, heaven would no longer be heaven. None of us would like to enter a world after we die and then live again that is ruled by selfishness and greed again, such as this one! We have already infected this planet with our unloving self-centered way therefore humanity will never be able to bring about a world were peace and love reign. But one of the titles given to Jesus is the title of “prince of peace”. He will return to this earth and establish a world at peace, a world where there is nothing that ever dies or ever grows old, a world vibrant with life and no decay or rust. This is the world that all peoples have been invited to be a part of, is a community of perfect love. We have been commanded by God to reject our unloving self-centered ways and to receive the pardon for our sin’s that God through the cross of Christ has won for us. If we do so, we will be forgiven all of our selfishness and will be reconciled back into a right relationship with God. This world community of love is the heritage of all the adopted sons and daughters of God their loving Father. Believe!
2 comments:
My lesson in bible study a few days ago was on this very scripture.
One question was How do you think all the law and the prophets could hang on these two commandments?
"We can only be rightly related to others if we are rightly related to God." Otherwise, we would have no motivation to live lives that are pleasing to God. For example in marriage, friendships, church or whatever we could think of, we would in ourselves have no desire or reason to care for others and do the things that are right. As Beth Moore said, in this study what would our motivation be it is certainly not promoted in this world. Without this motivation we would certainly not make relationships with others a priority. As you said we would be working purely from selfishness. Another point was that "God is not the only one who never changes human nature never changes either." She as well as I believe that we really want absolutes, to be saved from ourselves we want to know that there really are things that are black and white so that we will know what to do and do not live a life of confusion. As this lesson and you pointed out if only we could get the point that God's commands are for us and not against us we could have a holy reverence and fear for the Holy One, so that blessing and obedience might result.
Most of what I have written is from the study I am doing from Beth Moore. I just really liked this part and when you had it on your blog had to share some of what she was teaching on this subject.
Son Your thoughts on these things really touch my heart. Im hoping you can write a book of your own, so many people can read your work. From the time you were a little boy, my main thing, was to teach all my children that you are a child of God, made in His imagine, and you would do wonderful things. though we can not understand many things, that we as people do. We need to pray that those people will change, in ways that will please God and pray that they will know that he is waiting for them, to turn to him.We all are in school on this earth, learning every day. I give Thanks each day for all the blessings I have. So thankfull for the love I have and the beauty of the way God made this world.
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