(This week’s message at Living Word Christian Center turned out to be a review message in many ways. Since this blog follows the message, this will be a review time as well. Sometimes the reviews are even better than the originals.)
John 15:12(NKJV) 12This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
John 15:17(NKJV) 17These things I command you, that you love one another.
I want to spend time this week emphasizing the importance of the walking in the love of God. Paul places love at the center of Christianity in 1 Corinthians 13 as well as many other places in his writing. In 1 Corinthians 13:13, Paul points to the big three of our Christian walk, Faith, hope and love.
I believe both faith and hope are vital to any Christian’s victory. Without these two forces functioning, we will be at the mercy of the devil and limited in our walk with God. However, as important as these two forces of the spirit are, Paul says love is the greatest of all. Love is the source. Love is the motivator. If the love of God is flowing in our lives, faith and hope will follow. If we do not have love, even the faith and hope we have is tainted.
I have a number of teachings on the love of God. When I choose a topic, it is sometimes difficult for me not to default to those structured teachings. When I started to look at my existing outlines, the Lord said, “Just walk with me through the Gospels. See what I have to say about the love of my father.” That is what I am doing and it is very interesting.
One of the things that come through the teachings of Jesus is that love is not an option for a believer. The Jews lived under law. The Law of Moses was the only way they had to maintain their covenant relationship with God. As time went by, they lost the heart of God behind the law and made the law the central thing. If you did not keep the law exactly, you were condemned and cast out. In some cases the penalty for breaking the law was death.
Jesus understood how they thought. However, he wants them, and us, to see that the purpose of the law was not just to govern behavior. God loves man. Man was separated from God by sin. Sin dominated man’s behavior. God had to deal with sin in order to have any kind of fellowship with God. He made covenant with Abraham to establish this fellowship, but to maintain it with a nation of people there had to be a vehicle to deal with ongoing sin. The mechanism God put in place was a system of laws that would govern behavior and control sin as much as possible. To provide a way to pay for breaking these laws, he provided a system of penalties and sacrifices.
This was never intended to be a permanent solution. God was moving towards a permanent solution to the sin problem, but he needed a people through whom he could move in the earth. The Law of Moses and system of sacrifices that was included in it gave him that solution. However, the point all along was God’s love for man, not the Law itself.
When Jesus came, he was going to introduce a completely new system. This system would be possible because of the sacrifice Jesus was about to offer. His sacrifice would take care of the sin problem once and for all. No more sacrifices would ever be necessary to pay for sin. Hebrews gives us a vivid picture of what God was about to do in Jesus.
Hebrews 10:11-14(NKJV) 11And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, 13from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. 14For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.
The blood of Jesus has dealt with sin. The only requirement is that each individual receive this sacrifice for himself. No other sacrifice will ever be necessary to pay for sin. God is now free to reveal to man what he has wanted him to see from the beginning. The issue now is not how to deal with the separation sin created between man and God. The issue for God is to communicate to man the depth, breadth and height of his love for all humanity. The issue for us is to grow in acceptance and understanding of that love and communicate it to as many people as we can.
Jesus took all of the Mosaic Law and boiled it down to the one thing that motivated it in the beginning. He made love a commandment. He did not do away with the original Ten Commandments. He did not even do away with the Mosaic Law. We are still required to keep them all. He simply showed us how to keep them. If we keep the commandment of love, we will keep all the rest.
What should govern your behavior? I believe that there is too much loose living accepted in the body of Christ today. Compromise kills spirituality. Compromise makes us vulnerable to sin. Compromise causes us to accept things that we should not. Some behavior that does not start out as sin, will become sin as compromise does its work. How can we get rid of this compromise?
Make no mistake. I believe we need to discipline ourselves to live right before God. I believe we need to make good choices. I believe we need to decide to obey the Word of God in every way we understand it. Any disobedience to the word is sin. Romans 14:23 says anything that does not proceed from faith is sin. Both Jesus and Paul are very clear that our behavior must be in line the commandments of God.
However, both Jesus and Paul make something else very clear. If we give the Love of God a place of dominance in our lives, we will keep the law. If I love God with my whole heart, soul and mind I will do nothing that will hurt him. I will seek to please him because I love him and the result will be that I will keep the commandments in his word.
If I love my neighbor as myself, I will do nothing against my neighbor that I would not do to myself. The famous golden rule is simply a statement of the love commandment. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” If I love the other members of the body of Christ as Christ loved me, my behavior toward them will be as it should be.
Love is a commandment. It is the only commandment given to us by Jesus himself, yet it carries within it all other commandments and the means to keep them. The blood of Jesus has dealt with sin. Now, I am required to keep the commandment of love towards God and towards man. If I do, my behavior will be pleasing to God. However, we must remember, it is a commandment. It is not a choice. It is not an option. Your only choice is to obey the commandment of love.
How can we do this? We do it by decision. Remember, the love of God is decision based. Feelings will follow, but decision is the key. I decide to love God because he saved me. I respond to his love for me when he sent Jesus to die for me. I decide to love you because his word tells me to. When this decision governs my actions, I will keep all the other commandments.
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