In past years the dinner table at our house frequently rang out with the words “eat your peas!” We had the same plea of parents everywhere for our young ones to eat healthy food. Things changed on the occasion my youngest daughter Chera flat out refused. We spent the next hour proving our dominance over her by forcing her to eat them. We left the experience exhausted and emotionally drained. Then it occurred to us, the intent of our plea was to set a habit of good nutrition, it really wasn’t peas themselves that were the issue it was the benefit of the peas. Life-long devotion to health was our primary goal, how nutrition was delivered was secondary. We determined that it was impossible to achieve our primary goal if we forced the secondary.
Those who read scriptures from an “eat your peas” point of view find that God wants us to obey his commands (John 15:10). So we immediately start looking for a command checklist of do’s and don’ts to obey. Then we add traditions as commands to our checklist. We rationalize that if we force ourselves and others to obey everything on our checklist we will find the peace and love we seek.
Many of our church traditions today have adopted something similar to the original system of laws given by God to the Israelites. Under that system of laws I understand that 613 laws were commanded including 248 dos and 365 don’ts. The result of this system, generations of Israelites who couldn’t keep the commands and were not devoted to God. They were forced to “eat their peas” and despised it.
Jesus fulfilled the old law and placed a new law “in our hearts and in our minds” and made a new promise to believers. “By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear. Hebrews 8:13 (NIV)
Like Angie and I did as young parents, if He wanted to, God could establish his dominance over us by forcing his commands. But we would likely leave the experience despising Him more than loving Him. By focusing on the secondary outcome of our love for God, that is, obedience to HIS commands, we risk missing the power of our primary goal lifelong whole-hearted devotion to God.
- Because God loves us, we love God
- Because we love God we do what pleases him
- Because Christ’s sacrificed for us we sacrifice for Christ
- Because we don’t HAVE to, we want to
The early church was dealing with this situation as Jews who became Christians were having trouble leaving their checklist of laws and traditions. The church in Galatia was struggling to place relationship with God over rules, so Paul wrote this to them:
You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself….”So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. Galatians 5:13-17
So what does God want from us? The closest to a complete checklist under the “new law” is this:
- Love God more than anything else
- Love other people unconditionally
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:36-40 (NIV)
I want to be very clear to all Christians or those seeking the peace found in God through Christ. Putting love of God above all other things does not give us the “freedom to indulge the sinful nature” as Paul put it. He went on in the next sentences to give a test to discern if a life is lived “by the Spirit.”
The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Galatians 5:19-25 (NIV)
The message is clear, if we love God with all our hearts there will be no room for things that are contrary to that love; the fruits of the Spirit will outflow from our hearts and we will bless those we love (everybody). Not because we have to, because we want to with all our hearts.
See also 2 John 1:6, John 14:2, John 15:10, 1 Corinthians 7:19, 1 John 2:3
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Jesus abolished the old law and placed a new law “in our hearts and in our minds.” http://ow.ly/tGPV #God #Christ #Bible
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You lied to me! Perhaps one of the harshest sentences in any language is that one. No one wants to be lied to, deceived, tricked or otherwise diminished by another. The other day Rhoda and I were waiting for my daughter at her house when we noticed a hummingbird poised at my granddaughter’s basketball goal. The goal is bright red and the little bird thought it had arrived at a great big red flower. After a moment it was gone – after figuring out it was not a real flower. It was one of those “ if only I had a camera” times.
Satan grows those great big red flowers for deceiving human hearts. “…your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour…”. (I Peter 5:8 TNV). He can also transform himself to make the real bad look real good. “…for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light”. (2 Cor. 11:14 TNV). Elizabeth Browning brilliantly depicted Satan’s nefarious ways in her poem, “Aurora Leigh”, when she wrote, “the Devil’s most devilish when respectable”.
How much trouble will Satan take to try to deceive us “hummingbirds”? Whatever it takes. He only quits trying when we draw close to God. When we stay close to the cross, he can’t come there. But, we must be ever vigilant. In the book of Revelation, chapter 2, John says that some folks simply do not know the depths of Satan. Yes, he is real and yes he wants “hummingbirds” to fall for the fake great big red flower. He desires all to follow him, not God.
Watch our for the great big red flowers! Several years ago I wrote a poem and I think it speaks to the issue of not being on guard against the wiles of Satan. In this case it ends tragically as it always will when one becomes a friend of Satan.
DONKEY FLATS
Two men met where two roads cross.
One man was old and one was young.
Where to, young sir?
Where do you go?
To Donkey Flats, sir.
Why there young man?
Men only go there when all is lost.
All is lost sir and I am lost too.
Everything is lost that I held dear.
Cards, drinking and women
Took wife, children and home.
So I’m going to Donkey Flats sir.
And I won’t be coming back.
We often describe our Christian life as a daily walk, which is an enduring example of how we dedicate every moment of every day to Christ. The good news is we walk in the light near to God which gives a guiding light and illuminates a Spiritual path to the comfort of eternal life. To discover the true depth of this good news we need to focus on things to come. In Revelation the new heaven and the new earth are described by John:
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”….And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Revelation 21:1, 21:3, 21:23-27 (TNIV)
For believers it’s almost overwhelming to think of the day we can walk in the light of the Lord. BUT WE ALREADY ARE!
Truth is, humans have a heart of darkness. Left to our own devices, or trusting in anything (idols) other than love from God will trap us there. Jesus referred to this one time while he was in Jerusalem:
…from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean. Mark 7:21-23 (NIV)
Too many times we read these words and begin to pass judgment on a host of people who we just KNOW are living in darkness because they are not like us. We are too good to live in darkness – and we must have missed it when Jesus chastised the Pharisees and teachers of the law just moments earlier.
…Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:
“These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are but rules taught by men.”
You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men. Mark 7:6-8 (NIV)
The Pharisees Jesus was talking to were considered the conservatives of Judaism. They held strictly to the Torah and the Talmud and were very outwardly moral. But because they trusted in the traditions of men (meaning adding to the law) they were far from him, they had hearts of darkness.
Bottom line up front: Darkness doesn’t mean the same thing today as it did 2000 years ago. In the first century people understood and feared real darkness so they got it when Jesus told them, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” John8:12 (NIV). If you’re not a Christian you’re walking in darkness, put your trust in Christ who is the light.
Darkness has lost its meaning to us. Since the discovery of electricity and invention of the light bulb the world has been on a campaign to banish darkness. Just look around you some night: guard lights flood every house, street lights bathe our roads, office buildings shine through the night, spot lights sweep through the air, the rooms in our houses have lights on even if we are not in them, and our retinas burn as we stare for hours into the glare of our televisions. If you don’t believe it, you will the first time the electricity fails and the night as you know it stops…dark, dark, dark and silent…very silent.
