Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

"For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Gal 5:14

I've come to really appreciate summary statements.  They help me get to the point (and usually the hear) of someone's position or outlook on things. I see this in general life, I see it a lot at work and I see in the Bible. Jesus and most of the Biblical authors will, from time to time, make profound summary statements. And these summary statements help us place the whole topic that they are referencing in its proper framework.

So, in Gal 5 Paul pens this incredible statement: "For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself." What do we do with such a broad, sweeping, profound (dare I say life changing?) statement? A few things come to my mind and I trust that the Holy Spirit can reveal even more to you.

First, the law had (and has) a purpose that transcends the O.T. sacrificial system. All the laws (or commandments, if you prefer) have the chief aim of driving us to love our neighbors as ourselves. And, if God's glory is what we are ultimately striving for, apparently God's more glorified as we love others at the same level as we love ourselves.

Secondly, but equally important is that the truths and commands of the N.T. are consistent with and are an outgrowth of those revealed in the O.T. Read the Sermon on the Mount with Gal 5:14 in your mind. Praying for your enemies is not primarily to change them to be your friends, but to love them as you love yourself. Not stealing (or coveting), not murdering (or hating), not committing adultery (or lusting) are not simply self-restrictive commands but are rather tangible ways to show that we do in fact love our neighbors enough that we won't take their stuff, their spouse or their lives (not even in our minds).

Thirdly and maybe most importantly, loving our neighbors as ourselves, is exactly what Jesus did in living and dying for those who believe. He calls us to follow him, to emulate him, to become like him. In human terms, on the human level, the best way to be Christ-like is the truely, honestly, non-begrudgingly, love our neighbors as ourselves.

(There maybe a sermon in there somewhere, but that is for another day ;-)

To God Alone be the Glory

To Be Gladly Spent For Your Soul

"I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls" - 2 Cor 12:15

I've come to the conclusion that as God presses ever harder on my heart and mind that I have more questions and less answers. Or maybe its just that the answers are harder to hear and require more of me than my sinful nature is willing to release.

Take this passage from 2 Cor 12. In a chapter that is known for the third heaven and the thorn in the flesh and Christ's grace being sufficient is tucked this fragment of a verse that God has used to lay out to me both an example and a challenge. But there in lie the questions: What does it mean to spend? Money? Time? Service? Reputation? Life itself? An even deeper question is: What does it mean to be spent? Are our lives now the commodity? How do we get to this point? And what about our heart's attitude? How can I spend and be spent for someone else and be glad about it? This defies human nature. And the list goes on.

At this point I'm not going to post any of the answers that the Holy Spirit is stirring in my soul. The primary reason is that these answers are still vaporous to me. I am a work in progress; a jar of clay that is still on the pottery wheel. But a secondary and equally important reason is that I am becoming more and more convinced that quick answers, especially cleanly packaged ones only help us put God and our Christian walk in a box. We need to press hard into God and we need to let the Word read us (thanks to Matt Chandler for that phrase).

The conclusion? I want to imitate Paul as he imitated Christ (1 Cor 11:1). And didn't Christ spend and wasn't he spent for our souls? (Mk 10:45, among others) What that means and how that looks in my life (and your life) remains to be seen.

To God Alone be the Glory

Standing In The Breach

"And I sought for a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none." - Ezk 22:30

Each year, as I track through my Bible reading plan, I run across this verse. And, each time I read this verse I am left feeling both a lacking and a longing.

The lacking is obvious. Just as God looked upon His people in Ezekiel's day and found no one standing in the breach, so too today. My indictment, however, is not for those other people out there who are not standing in the breach. Rather my indictment is on myself. I am not standing in the breach, at least not in sense God is laying out here. My real lacking, however, comes when I realize this verse and all its implications, too quickly fades from the forefront of my mind. Tomorrow, (dare I say and hour from now?) this verse will be a quaint thought or a little tickler here and there during prayer times. I am truly not one standing in the breach since I am so easily distracted by other things.

But yet, there is this longing for something more. Could God make me into a man who would stand in the breach? Would He be willing to send the Spirit to clarify a distracted mind and steel a wandering heart? In what sense is God's seeking akin to my ever growing sense of lacking yet longing that it were not so?

As I sit here looking at a calendar that is full and a schedule that is even fuller, I have to ask myself, have I filled my life with things that are sub-optimal? Not bad, just not the best. How can one stand in the breach when most of the day is focused on things other than God, Christ and the gospel?

Father, as your Spirit churns within me something both disquieting and exciting, I ask that you guide me in way that honors you, proclaims the greatness of your Son, relies fully on your gospel and stands in the breach for the people whom you have called.

To God Alone be the Glory

The Valley of Death

From For The Love of God - vol 2 by D.A. Carson, Sep 7

Why do we choose what can last but an hour
Before we must leave it behind?
Why do possessions exert brutal power
To render us harsh and unkind?
Why do mere things have the lure of a flower
Whose scent makes us selfish and blind?
The cisterns run dry, and sour is our breath;
We dwell in the valley of death.

Why is betrayal attractive to us
Who often are hurt and betrayed?
Why barter faithful devotion for lust,
Integrity cast far away?
Why do our dreams, then our deeds, beggar trust,
Our guilt far too heavy to pay?
The cisterns run dry, and sour is our breath;
We dwell in the valley of death.

Why do we stubbornly act out a role,
Convincing the world that we’ve won?
Why for mere winning will we sell our soul,
In order to be number one?
Why sear our conscience so we’re in control—
Despairing of what we’ve become?
The cisterns run dry, and sour is our breath;
We dwell in the valley of death.

O Jesus—

Why do you promise to quench all our thirst,
When we have despised all your ways?
Why do you rescue the damned and the cursed,
By dying our death in our place?
Why do you transform our hearts till they burst
With vibrant expressions of praise?
The well flows with life—and we’re satisfied—
The fountain that flows from your side.