Living the Commandment of Unconditional Love- Part II

So, What Does It Mean to Love God?

To love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength means to give yourself totally over to God. It means to put God first at all times, in all circumstances. It means to do all things for the glory of God alone out of pure love for Him. It means your thoughts, feelings, desires, words and actions are all consulted of God. They also have God in their expenditure. Their outcome must bring others to glorify God.

Love your Neighbour as Yourself?

To begin with, you must first love yourself to understand how you will love your neighbour. The Book of Leviticus19 presents us with various rules of conduct. The issue we have with rules is that they tend to tell us what we are not supposed to do. They might be prohibitive, but they also call us to action. This is why we struggle to obey – some things we are to avoid, and other things we are to pursue. Thus, Moses warns us that in the struggle to obey, we must not oppress or keep each other in hardships. God’s chosen ones do not cause distress, anxiety, or discomfort to the neighbour. God’s beloved tries to understand before making harsh unjustly judgements of others. God’s children refrain from slander, carrying hatred in their hearts, bearing endless grudges and seeking revenge on their neighbours. When we have God’s love, we cannot do these things to ourselves because we love ourselves.

When it comes to fulfilling the law, St. Paul urges that we owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another because the one who loves another has fulfilled the law (cf. Romans 13:8). First, he states the commandments as applies to the other and then adds that love does not harm the neighbour since it is the fulfilment of the law (cf. Romans 13:9-10). However, as concerns the fulfilment of the law of love, the Lord Jesus carries this even further. According to Him, our neighbour is anyone who needs our love (cf. Luke 10:25-37). Yes, even our so-called enemy. It means everyone in the world.

How are we Living this Commandment?

So far, have we managed to avoid the negatives and excelled in loving positive actions? Most certainly, no. We all stand condemned before God. We do not love God with our all and we certainly do not love our neighbour as ourselves. We agree with the Lord Jesus on what the most important law is, but this agreement means absolutely nothing until we obey that law all our life and without fail. Like the scribe, we applaud Jesus’ answer in theological interest rather than in a personal spiritual application to daily life. We are self-righteous. We are damned and condemned in living the law in our way. Why? Because it keeps us not far from the kingdom of God, yet we want to be in the Kingdom.

Jesus is the Only Way In!

The scribe at least gets to score a point for making a great first move – coming to the Lord Jesus. He then loses the point for not drawing close enough to see the true answer that he came seeking. He can only see that the Lord Jesus knows God’s law. He does not see how the Lord obeys this law. He sees the Lord as a Teacher but does not recognize the Saviour who can take him into the Kingdom. He sees the man in the Lord but does not discern His divinity. If only he had drawn closer, he would have seen the perfected man who loves God with his all, who never even once disobeyed the Law, who loves his neighbour as Himself to the extent that He goes to the Cross to prove this love. He misses the bigger picture because he hopes for a massive theological score with his catchy question. In the end, he does not see the Lord for who He is and what He does. He ends up only admiring Him for what He teaches.

The scribe who spends a lot of his timekeeping records of events about God’s glory coming into the temple does not recognize God’s glory standing right in front of him. He cannot see that the man he is asking questions is the Redeemer. He is blinded to the coming of the fulfilment of time, where God sends His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law. And sadly, he misses the adoption (cf. Galatians 4:4-5). He comes so close to being a son but remains enslaved to the law. He comes so close to finding a loving Father but goes away knowing a great Law-giver. The Lord Jesus is there to guide him into the Kingdom, but he misses the point and remains altogether not far. We too have variously missed the hope of the Gospel. We stand unaware in the presence of God. Many a time, our knowledge and agreements shield us from repentance and belief in the Lord Jesus. We discuss matters with the Lord but do not fall on our knees in worship of Him. We remain not far from the kingdom of God, yet we want to be in the Kingdom.

TAKE HOME

The Lord Jesus has given us great teachings on how to live and showed us how to treat one another. But He came to rescue us from sin and death and to save us from the crushing weight of the law. He is the door by which we enter the Kingdom. By His blood, we are cleansed. By His death, we find the peace of God. When we come to Him, we will find rest. When we repent and admit we need Him, the Kingdom can be ours. When the law weighs heavily upon us, He gives us new life. When we admit our sinfulness, we find our Saviour. However, we cannot hope in our obedience. Our hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ crucified, raised, ascended, glorified and coming again. Beloved, stop standing not far from the kingdom peeping in and come in where