Category: Love

Add a New Commandment?

If you ask most church attenders, “What is the greatest commandment?” They will give you the same or similar answer that Jesus gave in Matthew 22:36, as follows:

 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Ok, so love God first with all that it means to be you.

Love your neighbor as you do yourself; that’s a bit harder, but doable.

Jesus was referencing the Law given to Moses in Leviticus 19:18

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor (assuming still of your own people) as yourself: I am the Lord.

But then he takes it a step further in the Sermon on the Mount.  He basically steps beyond the Law as follows:

Matthew 5: 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

Yikes! Love God, your neighbor as yourself, and love your enemy…now it’s really getting tough!

What a lot of folks don’t realize is that he didn’t even stop the progression at this point.

One of my favorite passages is in the book of John, where he reveals in fuller detail the final private conversation Jesus had with his disciples at the Last Supper. John Chapters 13-17 are the most intimate, powerful, and loving words Jesus spoke during his time on earth. It’s almost like the other gospel writers were so busy getting the facts down during the short time allotted to them, that they left out or shorthanded these so powerful last moments with Jesus. John lived the longest and basically had more time to meditate on and even to discuss with others the teachings Jesus gave.  

And here, in John 13:34-35, he records that Jesus took this teaching to what can be, for some, the hardest point of all.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

So now it’s, love God with your entire self, your neighbor as yourself, love and pray for your enemy, and love those who are following Jesus- the same way that He does!

This time, it’s not: “hey, let’s take this a step further….” It is a new command.

Why does this command seem so difficult? Well, for the disciples, they were still struggling, as they had been from the beginning, with who was the greatest, who got the best seats, basically, who got to be in charge. In case you haven’t noticed, the church has never gotten over its attraction to power.

People who are following Jesus may not agree politically, not unlike these disciples: Simon the zealot, fighting against the Romans, and Matthew the tax collector, collaborating with them. Strange how Jesus did not side with either of them; he called them away from their former allegiances to follow Him and now tells them to love one another.

There were other differences. John was close to the religious establishment to such an extent that he was able to get Peter into the inner courtyard when Jesus was taken before the high priest. Thomas was a doubter. One was orthodox in his theology, the other stood back with a skeptical attitude. That can lead to conflict.

Andrew was always bringing people to Jesus-his brother Simon, the boy with the lunch, even Greeks who wanted to see Jesus. Philip also brought Nathanel. On the other hand, James and John wanted to call down fire on those who rejected Jesus and tell the man to stop, who wasn’t one of the twelve but was casting out demons. So, we have the gatekeeping- keep the faith- religious purists versus those who would throw the doors open to anyone. (Even Greeks..Gasp!)

Economically and socially, some were fishermen, blue-collar workers for sure. Tax collectors, maybe wealthy but with dirty money. The disciple known to the high priest- assumed to be John- was powerfully connected. Snobs, like Nathanael, who famously wanted to know if any good thing could come from Nazareth.

I wish Jesus had followed his command with detailed steps to accomplish this feat, and with possibly a few exceptions, addendums etc. But he didn’t. He just said this was the only way that everyone would know that it is truly Him we are following. We might be disciples of some denomination, religion, political party, or leader, but if we are HIS disciples, we WILL love one another.

The only answer I find is that the Holy Spirit had to come fill them, and they had to learn to walk and live in that Spirit before it even became remotely possible. Later in this same Last Supper Discourse, Jesus states, John 14:26

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

We are going to need a lot of reminders!

Closets

Someone opened my closet.

All the stuff came pouring out. All the stored, labeled, packed away issues I thought I had dealt with years ago. My loneliness, abandonment issues, bitterness, regret, blaming, and so much sadness and loss lay there in front of this person that I hardly knew. I felt exposed, raw, and so guilty.

It was probably an opportunity to respond differently this time. I wish I had done that.

The thing is, I have cleaned out this closet. So. Many. Times. I’ve opened every box, emptied the contents, wrestled with God over them, mourned, repented -why are they still there? Dust and maybe a few pantry moths, that I can never seem to get rid of, should have been all that floated out of that dark door.

Part of the problem is that the circumstances that aggravate the issues have not gone away. I can’t FIX it. And for all my prayers and tears, God has chosen not to fix it either.

Somehow, I have to get to this place:

I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance- I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:11-13)

I know that some of this struggle is about forgiveness. Forgiveness is necessary, but if the situation causing pain is ongoing, I have found that the forgiveness will also need to be.

Colossians 3:13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 

What is helpful in that verse is not the admonition to forgive but the “bearing with one another.” There are some things we have to “bear”: defined as carrying the weight of support/enduring an ordeal or difficulty.

So, what I am choosing to believe is the following:

That God can give me the strength to learn contentment in my situation.

That if I am filled with the love of God, I can bear all things, including the need to forgive an ongoing hurt.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:7

Maybe next time someone touches that door, I can just ask them to pray for me…

2021- We’ve Got One Job

Here we are, facing a new year…but already, rather than feeling we are on the brink of a new and exciting future, most of us are dreading, even fearful, what this week or this year may bring. How can we find the courage to go forward into this year?

Paul wrote to the Philippians in 3:12-14 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own- But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

 So, what does it mean to press on?

We are a family who loves stories, and so I thought of Tolkien’s Sam and Frodo struggling to the last ounce of their strength to get up the mountain.

“I’ll get there, if I leave everything but my bones behind,” said Sam. “And I’ll carry Mr. Frodo up myself, if it breaks my back and heart.”

That is pressing on!

Or little Reepicheep from C.S. Lewis Voyage of the Dawn Treader:

 “My own plans are made. While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan’s country, or shot over the edge of the world into some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise.”

Even Lewis himself kept his eyes on the goal:

“The Christian says, ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists…If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing…I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”

The early church father Augustine expressed a similar sentiment:

“I look forward, not to what lies ahead of me in this life and will surely pass away, but to my eternal goal. I am intent upon this one purpose, not distracted by other aims, and with this goal in view, I press on, eager for the prize, God’s heavenly summons. Then I shall listen to the sound of Your praises and gaze at Your beauty ever-present, never future, never past. But now my years are but sighs. You, O Lord, are my only solace. You, my Father, are eternal. But I am divided between time gone by and time to come, and its course is a mystery to me. My thoughts, the intimate life of my soul, are torn this way and that in the havoc of change. And so it will be until I am purified and melted by the fire of Your love and fused into one with You.”

So how do we, in a world reeling from a pandemic, divided by politics, increasingly deceptive and violent-

“press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus,”

“make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same,”

(Stay) “intent upon this one purpose, not distracted by other aims, and with this goal in view, I press on, eager for the prize, God’s heavenly summons?”

There is only one way- Hebrews 12: 1-2, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

LOOKING TO JESUS!

Not to any human leader, cause, political party, ideology!

He is the ultimate example of pressing on- He endured through all the hate, hurt, pain, and even death until He WON and was seated at the right hand of God. He did not overcome by trying to overthrow- He overcame by laying down His life.

Our instructions for 2021 have not changed. Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” John 13:34

1 John 3:16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

We have one job in this new year- to love like Jesus.