Last week we looked at the first of
two points that I would like to highlight regarding the Law of
Moses. As I said last week, I am not going to go through the Law in
detail now; I simply want to highlight these two points. Firstly a
lot of the rules were given to ensure that the Israelites do not
start acting like the people in Canaan that they were about to
enter and last week I discussed how that applies to us and that we
should not conform to this world, but rather follow God and His
ways.
Now today I would like to look at
the Law from a different angle. I think a lot of people are scared
or not really motivated to become Christians when they look at all
the 'Do nots' that we find in Leviticus. And then they come to the
conclusion that the whole Bible is full of 'Do nots' and then they
naturally don't want to read the rest of the Bible.
But Jesus sums up the Law of Moses
beautifully in Matthew 22:37 - 40
'Jesus replied, "You must love the
Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your
mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is
equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the other
commandments and all the demands of the prophets are based on these
two commandments."
John affirms this in 1 John
3:23:
'This is God's commandment: We must
believe in the Name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another,
just as He commanded us.'
There are a number of other
scriptures that affirm this, but I think the point has been made.
The Law can be summed up in the following manner: Love God with all
that you have, believe in His Son Jesus and love other people. This
is the message that echoes throughout the Bible and that echoes to
us today. Now at first I thought, thank goodness, that is not too
difficult, but the more I think about it the harder it becomes.
To really love God means to spend
time with Him, to put Him first above everything else, to take away
things in our lives that He doesn't approve of and to stand up for
Him and share Him with others no matter what the circumstances.
Think about it carefully. It is not an easy task! It might be easy
on a Sunday at church, but it certainly isn't easy when the week is
rushed, when we don't have the time to spend with Him, when we are
confronted with people who don't believe in Him or even worse if we
were to find ourselves in a country where He isn't served and
honored. Then it is not easy at all.
And to love other people is even
worse! As Jesus said, it is easy to love our friends and family,
but it is so difficult to love our enemies and those that hate us
and want to do us harm. That is not easy, but that is what is
expected of us. John pleaded in his first letter that we should
love one another, especially our fellow brothers and sisters in
Christ. It is sad to think that we don't even get that right, never
mind loving unbelievers!
It is a very difficult task that
Jesus has given us, but lucky for us, He gave us His Spirit to help
us in it. He gives us the strength and the grace to be able to love
like we should love. He would never have told us to do it if He
knew we couldn't. In our own strength I am convinced we would never
be able to do it, but with His help, everything is possible. But we
need His strength. Ask Him for it and strive to be more like Him
every day. That is the task of every Christian.
Father we feel as if we have an
insurmountable mountain in front of us. But thank you that with
You, all things are possible. Thank you that You will give us the
strength that we need. We thank you that You loved us first, even
though we were rotten through and through. Thank you Jesus,
Amen.