All Bets Off!

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and 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 22:37-40. “If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing right…For whoever is keeping the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” James 2:8-9.

When I think of the passages above I draw a parallel to my own life as a parent. You and I can have such an amazing relationship with each other, but the moment you do not show loving actions towards my children all bets are off! We cannot go any further until you reconcile with my child. The message in the Word is loud and clear from our Father: You don’t love me if you are not loving my children…end of story…no need to go on to the other commands, because they all hinge on these two commands. God is not a God of words only but a God who follows up His declaration of love with action. To say we love and withhold action is not the pattern of love for which God speaks.

When we are living a Christian life bent on righteousness we are on the right path. We try to be loving and compassionate people in a world that seems to show us little of the same in return. We attempt to live out the commands of God but so many times we live out the commands of our heart. We pick and choose which laws to follow in our lives and which laws we slam down the gavel in convicting others.

The One who spoke the command in Matthew written above is also the One who forbids murder, envy, adultery and a host of other laws. We seem to gloss over the fact that the command to love God first and our neighbor second sits in authority over all of the others. Christ came to fulfill the law of freedom and paid the price for each of us. When we humbly ask Him to whom we should make out our check, He expects us to pay our debt to Him by loving those who we deem as unlovable. That is our debt to pay in full – to think of the most unlovable person in our lives and love them as God commands. ‘Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law…Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.’ Romans 13:8, 10.

Our benefit from Christ’s death will continue throughout eternity but so does our debt to love others.