We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
What God Requires
The reason we were created and what we are called to be is summed up in one word: love. The central defining truth of those who follow Jesus is that in Christ God ascribed unsurpassable worth to us, and thus the central defining mark of those who live in love is that they ascribe the same unconditional worth to themselves and all others.
This is what God requires. John put it this way, “This is the message you have heard from the beginning that we should love one another” (1 John 3:11). This is the message! John spoke as if there was no other message.
So too, Jesus said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). He spoke as though there was no other command because, as a matter of fact, there really isn’t any other command. Every other commandment and every other message is contained in this one.
Hence, after giving us the two inseparable “greatest” commands to love God and our neighbor as ourselves, Jesus added “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt 22:40). Everything in the OT hangs on and is summed up in these two.
Paul said, “The whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Gal 5:14).
The point of all such teachings is that if we truly abide in Christ and love God, ourselves, and our neighbors as ourselves, we will fulfill everything God requires of us. It is virtually impossible to obey this commandment consistently and not fulfill the entire law. This is why Scripture consistently emphasizes that the singular aim of the disciple must be to love.
Paul said, “Above all, clothe yourself with love” (Col 3:14). Christ-like love is something we are commanded to wear. It should envelop us at all times. This command is placed “above all.” Peter agreed when he wrote, “Above all, maintain constant love for one another” (1 Peter 4:8).
There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, that should ever displace the command to love as the first and foremost concern of the disciple—no doctrine, no ethical principle, no personal agenda, and no exceptions.
If our thought word, or deed doesn’t result in ascribing unsurpassable worth to the persons we encounter, it shouldn’t be thought, voiced, or acted on. It’s that simple: love alone must govern each and every encounter in our lives.
—Adapted from Repenting of Religion, pages 48-53
Photo via Visual hunt
Category: General
Tags: Love, Obedience
Topics: Following Jesus
Related Reading
What Power Do You Trust?
Governments and nations have always relied on fighting to survive. They punish criminals who threaten their welfare. They go to war against enemies who attack their borders or stand in the way of their agenda. This is how the kingdoms of the world maintain law and order and advance their causes. By contrast, the Kingdom…
Conservatives and Liberals in the Same Kingdom
Jesus did not allow the world to set the terms for what he did. For instance, he called Matthew, a tax collector, as well as Simon, a zealot, to be his disciples. Tax collectors were on the farthest right wing of Jewish politics, zealots on the farthest left. In fact, zealots despised tax collectors even…
Where Psychology and Theology Meet
Guest post by Ty Gibson The biblical narrative reveals that God bears our guilt—not merely in the penal sense that Reformed theology asserts—but in the sense that He bears our misconceptions of His character as we project our sins upon Him. To the degree that fallen human beings find it psychologically impossible to bear the…
The Sine Qua Non of the Kingdom
In contrast to the habit of judgment which I challenged in the previous post, God calls his people to love the way that God loves. But what exactly does this mean? People have a lot of screwy ideas about “love” today. We use the word “love” to mean a lot of different things, from sexual…
What, Father, Do You Desire This Minute?
Frank Laubach, a 20th century missionary to Philippines, wrote about the challenge of being continually aware of the presence of God and learning to respond to God’s promptings. He wrote, “I feel simply carried along each hour, doing my part in a plan which is far beyond myself. This sense of cooperation with God in…