2005-09-30
Good Morning Entrusted Ones,
This morning's greeting is an apt description of every believer. We are indeed "entrusted with the treasure," as 2 TIM 1: 14 refers to the true words that we are taught by God. God's laws are most certainly at the center of those words. When we have a real understanding of God's laws, we can't help but realize that they were put in place to protect the innocent from wrongdoers, as well as to bless our lives. Sadly, the way the law is applied in this country, it does more to protect the lawbreakers than their victims. That is why people like Mike Tyson and O.J. Simpson walk around free today, while the women Mike has raped can do nothing about it, and O.J.'s wife, Nichole, and Ron Goldman's son have lost their lives. LV 19: 18 (don't take revenge; love your neighbor as yourself), DT 6: 4-5 (statement of monotheism and command to love the Lord with all one's heart, soul, and might), and MK 12: 28-34 (a repetition of these principles) all point to the consistency of God's message and His priorities that remain unchanged throughout mankind's history. The legalism that traditional Jews practiced in Christ's time on earth and still practice today shows no understanding of God's grace. That is why traditional Jews still believe that their good works ("mitzvahs") will get them into heaven. This practice is essentially saying one can work or earn his way into heaven.
As believers we know that Christ teaches us to love one another. We can understand the relationship between that teaching and each of the Ten Commandments by what is said in RO 13: 8-10, "Be under obligation to no one-the only obligation you have is to love one another. Whoever does this has obeyed the Law. The commandments, 'Do not commit adultery; do not commit murder; do not steal; do not desire what belongs to someone else' - all these, and any others besides, are summed up in the one command, 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself.' If you love someone, you will never do him wrong; to love, then, is to obey the whole Law." Everything that is good comes from the Lord, a notion which is the basis of David's statement in PS 16: 2, "I said the Lord, 'You are my Lord. Every good thing I have comes from You.'"
We get further illumination of this relationship in 1 COR 13: 1-8, 12-13, which I will excerpt here due to space limitations. I may have knowledge , secrets, faith, but without love I am nothing (4-7). Love is patient, kind, not jealous or conceited or proud; love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love doesn't keep a record of wrongs; love is not happy with evil but is happy with the truth. Love never gives up; and its faith, hope, and patience never fail. Love is eternal (4-8). [The latter sentence is the inscription Peter and I chose to have on our wedding rings, as have many other couples including Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd]. What we understand now is "like a dim image in a mirror," but when we see God face to face in heaven, then God will complete it, as is His knowledge of ourselves. "Meanwhile, these three remain: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love." (12-13). It is this teaching, which God gives us from the depths of His own loving heart, has the power, when applied in a godly manner, to make huge changes in the world. The sad part about this is that in proportion to the total number of God's human creation, few choose to think, decide, and act on love.
RO 13: 9-10 is worthy of closer examination. "For our gifts of knowledge and of inspired messages are only partial; but when what is perfect comes, then what is partial will disappear." It will be replaced by what is complete, something that each of us as believers should be eager to happen. Perhaps, this will be our greatest blessing ever when it happens! I believe God keeps every promise He makes, and that He does this in His perfect timing and way. That is part of the hope of the resurrection for me, and it is my hope that it is your view too. We must remember that we are worshipping the One and Only True God, Whose greatest desire is to bring as many of us back to Himself as will repent and believe in His Son [JN 6: 39-40]. We must also remember that this is the same God Who sacrificed His only Son on the cross, so that we may have a path of escape (through our faith in Him) from permanent slavery to sin and from spiritual death. Add to that this fact: when we came to faith in Christ, we were justified (deemed acceptable to God) and were given the gift of the Holy Spirit to dwell within us-so that we might understand God's teaching and make forward progress down the "hard path that leads from the narrow gate" [MT 7: 13-14] to eternal life.
PRAYER: O Lord, You are surely making true Christ's words in MT 25: 32, "...And the people of all nations will be gathered before Him. Then He will divide them into two groups, just a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." To help my own understanding of this teaching, I think of the sheep as those who follow the Good Shepherd, who become faithfully obedient to God's Law with love. The goats are those who reject God in favor of following a false god, the idolaters of this world whose only love in life is power, material things, and their own leisure. You have made Your definitions of real love so clear and easy to understand in Your word, through precept and example. The true embodiment of the love You teach is the ideal You have given us in the life of Your own Son. We are imperfect sinners, but deep within us You planted a seed of desire to follow His example. When He left to return to You in heaven, He left us with the promise that "He is the first among many brothers" [RO 8: 29] to do so, with the promise (now fulfilled) that He would send a Counselor [JN 14: 16-17] Who would help us to understand Your teaching and will for our lives, and with the promise that He would one day return for us [JN 14: 18]. You also gave us Your Law, those Ten Commandments with which our society struggles. I say this, because today's interpretation of them is so imperfect and lacks real understanding of Your will. I stand ashamed that people in our society are doing what they can to remove any trace of them from our schools, justice system, and court houses. Dearest Father, we don't profess to have perfect understanding of Your laws or even of your meaning of love. But, I know that in this prayer if we ask You to help us improve these things, You will do that [JN 15:7]. So, we ask You today to help us find a way to get back to where the law protects the innocent, as You intend for it to do. Moreover, we ask that You help us to better understand the kind of love Christ modeled for us and how to apply it to the conduct of our lives. Help us, O Lord, to shorten the distance that now exists between Your teaching and our practice of the Law. We pledge before You today to improve our efforts to make our human agendas comply with Your greater and more important ones. We also offer You our worship, love, praise, and thanks for Your constantly loving presence in the lives of all believers. Your desire to bring more of those who will listen to the truth will become a priority of ours. We will lovingly reach our in evangelism to the unsaved and practice Your kind of love with each other. In Christ's holy name, Amen.
Next week, I am led to continue discussing some of God's words, which will help us better understand how love is at the basis of God's Law. Those who are new to the OT often say, "I don't like this, because it is so harsh." They don't understand the enormous multi-faceted task that God has had before Him to civilize mankind and to bring those willing to be teachable out of the marketplace of slavery to sin. No other entity except the One and Only True God has both the sovereignty and the power to do this. No other god loves his creation as our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, does. No other god has taken the initiative to reach down to His creation and offer them grace, as Jehovah has. This is what separates Judeo-Christianity from any other religion on earth. We must ask: how many of us would reach out to other people who are enemies and offer them grace and total forgiveness for the wrongs they have done us? Our God not only did this, but did so to make us His friends [RO 5: 9-11]! Never have we deserved the blessings of grace that God has given us. I have often said that the first 33 years of my own life were miserable. I certainly didn't have any real knowledge of the presence of our Lord and Savior until I was 25. I'm not proud of the way I lived a number of those years and was on my way to worse misery in jail had not the Lord chosen to give me faith in Him. We are not allowed to know why a person like me or any number of others living lives in this world are chosen, but we each owe it to God to honor Him with efforts to allow Him to reveal Himself to us and to let Him take over leadership of our lives. Rejoice with me in the knowledge that our Lord loves each and every believer and potential believer. And yes, that includes everyone reading this message!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn