Thought of the Day !!

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

                   He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

                              Luke 10:25-28 (NIV)

A mentor of mine once told me that he thought we had made the Bible more complicated than it really was.  What he meant was that we tried so hard to make sense of everything that wound up adding to a much simpler concept of Christianity.  To this I would agree.  At its core, Christianity is all about these two commands.  Love God, and love each other.

But oh how we can complicate things.  Take the Roman Road way of salvation for instance.  This is taking verses from Romans and sharing them with people to lead them to Christ.  It’s all good stuff.  It tells us that we’re all sinners, which we are.  It tells us that the penalty for sin is death, which it is.  It tells us to confess with our lips and believe in our hearts, which we should.  And then a prayer asking for forgiveness is repeated and the person is supposedly saved, which might or might not be the case.

Let me suggest that you don’t have to worry about the confessing with your lips or being baptized or asking forgiveness etc.  What if our faith was totally wrapped up in loving God (Jesus & Holy Spirit) with all our hearts, souls, strength and minds?  What if we taught people to seek a loving relationship with Jesus and fall deeply and madly in love with Him just as King David had with God the Father? 

Let me suggest one more thing.  If people fall in love with Jesus everything else will come.  Jesus told us in John’s Gospel that if we love Him we would obey Him.  Therefore if we love Him we will have the desire to confess Him.  If we love Him we will desire to be baptized.  If we love Him we will trust Him as Savior and follow Him as Lord and repent as he commands.

A friend in seminary used to jokingly say, “I just love Jesus” when we were razzing him.  The wonderful thing was that this was a true statement for him, and it needs to be for us as well.  If we love Jesus then all other things will fall into place.  Now it’s time to radically fall in love with the God that radically loves you.

In the love of Christ,

greg