Love God & Love Others

Lately there has been a portion of scripture that I have been seeing everywhere and maybe it’s just for me but the simplicity and timeliness of it is something that we all need to really learn and walk in, daily. In the book of Matthew we find two amazingly simple commandments from Jesus and in my opinion if these commandments were followed or at least attempted to be followed our families, churches, cites & world would be in far better shape that it currently is.

So these religious know-it-alls were always trying to slip up Jesus and they even worked together in this specific portion of scripture in Matthew when they asked him, “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” The response from Jesus is what I truly believe we all need to really zero in on. Jesus responded, “You must 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 of the Laws. The second is like it, You must love your neighbor as yourself. All the Laws and the writings of the early preachers depend on these two most important Laws.”

There’s a lot here for example did you notice how the first commandment was to Love God then love your neighbor or love others as you love yourself. You can’t truly have love for anyone else until you first love God. Oh sure, you can have a deep longing and infatuation for them and you may think that that is what love should feel like but you would be wrong. So you might rebuttal that and say, “Are you telling me that you can’t know love apart from God?” to answer that question and not beating around the proverbial bush; yes! Here’s why, in 1 John 4:8 we get the answer right from the Word of God and it says, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (emphasis mine).

I believe it’s high time that we cry out and ask God to show us how to live out these two-most important commandments. If we truly loved God and others as we are instructed to think about how revolutionary that would be. What would be different in our society? If you put God and others before our own desires? I guarantee you that it would change this nation and do we ever need it.

I wanted to leave you with a portion of the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi. Now I am huge fan of looking up common portions of scripture in multiple translation because I truly believe that God is big enough to speak through ANYTHING. In Philippians 2:3 we see a very heart-felt plea that Paul gives the church and I believe this plea echoes through the ages and is aimed right at today’s church. The King James Version says it like this, “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” Now for you Seminary Students and post-graduate readers out there God may speak to you through that and that is totally fine; however, for me it was “The Message” translation that really spoke volumes and that is what I leave you with today. It picks it up starting in Verse 1, and it reads.

“If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.”

Take Care & God Bless,

-E

Weary Warrior

Don’t forget to raise the shield of faith above all else, so you will be able to extinguish flaming spears hurled at you from the wicked one. Ephesians 6:16 (The Voice)

I recently had a fellow brother in Christ ask me a question that struck a deep root of compassion within me. He asked me, "Do you ever feel like you're not saved?" I could tell by the tone and his demeanor that he had been going through a battle and it must have been a pretty intense one for him to be feeling this way. I provided some words of encouragement that in my own head seemed to fall short of what he needed at that moment, but I made a point to pray that night and trust that God would strengthen him.

This struck a nerve with me because if we were all honest we would say that we too have felt this feeling from time to time in our own walk. Life has a way of tossing us around that we can quickly forget which way is up and fall into a seemingly bottomless pit of despair. This brother and I share the battlegrounds of this war and to say that the fighting of the flesh can be intense may be the understatement of the decade. So often in the midst of the fight we can lose sight of God simply because there is just a constant bombardment of attacks coming from the enemy.

As I sat in prayer this morning for my brother in arms what kept coming to mind was Paul's letter to the Church at Ephesus, specifically when he was writing about the Armor of God (Ephesian 6:10-18). Paul tells his fellow brothers & sisters to draw their strength from God, then he clarifies what type battle they are engaged in (not flesh and blood v. 12). He then goes on to detail what the Armor of God is and it was here that one jumped off the page at me and I love how "The Voice" translation says it, it reads; "Don't forget to raise the shield of faith above all else, so you will be able to extinguish the flaming spears hurled at you from the wicked one." Other translations start this verse with phrases like, "Above all" or "In all circumstances", which indicates to me that Paul was stressing the importance of this portion of the Armor.

After I read this I could almost see the epic "Lord of the Rings-style" battle taking place and that's when the light bulb went off and I thought, "Warriors get tired in the battle and sometimes they are probably too tired to even defend themselves or to 'raise their shields'". I could see where God was taking me on this revelation road and it triggered a huge ear-to-ear grin on my face. You see in these times when our fellow warriors are too tired to fight or protect themselves it's our responsibility to cover them, to have their backs, to use our shield (faith) to protect them until they can regain their strength. How do we cover them? How do we practically apply this? Glad you ask, WE PRAY! We get alone before God, get the focus off ourselves and trust that God can and will provide strength in the midst of the fight; because He will. 

Take Care & God Bless,

-E