Well said.
Today’s devotion is based off of week 2 of Unlikely Heroes: A Teacher (WATCH HERE)
Well said.
The teacher responds to the greatest Teacher:
Mark 12:32 “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
It is easy to miss the point among the details.
In the plethora of laws which God had given to Israel, one may try to prioritize which of the laws is the most important. It seems by the teacher of the law’s response that many had prioritized as important the bringing of offerings and sacrifices to the temple. Perhaps this might be like “C&E Christians” (Christians who attend church on just Christmas and Easter). It is maybe perceived as the “bare minimum” activity to still claim to be a Christian. Perhaps the bringing of offerings and sacrifices on occasion was deemed to be the bare minimum to be considered a practicing Jew.
However, the teacher of the law was understanding from Jesus’ answer that what the Lord was looking for wasn’t a few “bare minimum” activities that honored a couple of the laws he had given, rather what Jesus’ answer indicated is that the Lord was interested in the full devotion of the individual’s heart. Only when the heart had been touched by the love of Christ would the actions follow in a way that honored the Lord.
The prophet Hosea put it this way as he confronted a straying Israel. The way back to the Lord wasn’t simply by going through the motions of the law, but rather a heart that was fully focused on the Lord. Hosea, speaking for the Lord said, “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings (Hosea 6:6).
Empty actions are only indicative of an empty heart.
A heart touched by the love of God is motivated to follow the law of God.
And that’s where grace comes into play.
The grace of God reflects the love of God that was willing to send the Son of God to fulfill the law of God on behalf of each one of us. The fact that, as the Apostle Paul says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
The amazing thing about this great exchange is that we are GIVEN the status as righteous (perfect) as a gift of God. Because we wear the righteousness of Christ, we are not following God’s law to appease the justice of God (i.e. to become righteous), but rather to reflect our gratitude for the grace of God.
And when we live in and are motivated by the grace of God, we are not far from the kingdom of God, because it is what people do whom God has brought into his kingdom.
Apply: How does your perspective change on the law of God as you realize it is there not to earn the righteousness of God, but rather to guide your life of living for God?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for your grace. Let it motivate me to live every aspect of my life as a true expression of gratitude for your grace. AMEN.
Love your neighbor…
Today’s devotion is based off of week 2 of Unlikely Heroes: A Teacher (WATCH HERE)
Love your neighbor…
At face value, Jesus’ summary of the second table of the law is simple: Love your neighbor as yourself.
However, this short command that is regularly quoted, like every other passage of Scripture is set in a context that is important to understand.
Love for neighbor flows from total love for the Lord, your God.
Love for your neighbor is not independent of love for the Lord.
To put it this way, one cannot love their neighbor well unless they love the LORD well.
Love for the Lord defines how I love my neighbor and how I love myself for that matter.
In our culture today, “love your neighbor” is often equated with the sentiment, “accept everything your neighbor is doing as OK and don’t speak against it.”
This is not the case.
Just like a parent would be negligent in the love for their child by allowing them to engage in activities that are harmful to their body or soul, so loving our neighbor well shows a genuine concern for the physical and spiritual health, just like we are to have for our own physical and spiritual health.
The Apostle Paul lays out the stark contrast between those things which harm our physical bodies and our soul. To love ourselves and our neighbor well would be to avoid these things ourselves and with truth and love help our neighbor to see the same. He also outlines what happens when love for God takes over our heart and guides our actions. The fruit of the Spirit becomes evident and obvious. These characteristics give great indicators of what it looks like when we are loving both God and neighbor.
Galatians 5:19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the fleshwith its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
To be sure in our culture it is hard to “speak the truth in love” and communicate that danger to body and soul of certain behaviors and lifestyles. Perhaps here’s a simple encouragement to grow in our love for neighbor: Grow in our love for the LORD first, then seek with the wisdom of God’s Spirit and the examples of Jesus our Savior to love our neighbor well.
Apply: Think of a relationship that is challenging you to love right now. What aspect of God’s love for you might help you love that individual better?
Prayer: Lord give me greater depth of appreciation of your love for me so that I may have true love for my neighbor which is guided by your love for me. AMEN.
Start with the basics!
Today’s devotion is based off of week 2 of Unlikely Heroes: A Teacher (WATCH HERE)
The story is told that when Vince Lombardi, the famous coach of the Green Bay Packers, began a new year of practice, he picked up a football and held it before the team. “This is a football.” He would state.
By time a player got to the NFL, you would think they would know it was a football. However, the point of the statement was to set the tone for the team that if they didn’t understand and master the basics, the rest of the team play would be challenging.
So it is with the law of God. Moses (repeated by Jesus) starts with the basics. But perhaps in this case, it is not as obvious to everyone as a football was to Lombardi’s team.
‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Maybe when people in Israel heard Moses say this for the first time, they thought, “Of course he is.
However, for Israel and for us today, the statement bears repeating and emphasis. Israel would struggle in their history with the worship of other gods. This basic truth is still important to state clearly.
The LORD God is different than Buddah, Allah, or Vishnu. Even though some may think that all gods are the same, the Lord God in now way would agree to that.
Isaiah 42:8 “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another or my praise to idols.
Why is this so important to establish? Because to love any other entity or thing that is called god is an empty love at best a false love at worst.
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’
Notice the clarity of where our love is to be focused: The Lord YOUR God.
So who is this LORD?
He is Creator.
He is the I AM who called Moses to leadership of Israel.
He is the Good Shepherd of whom King David wrote.
He is the God who loved the world so much he sent his Son to save the world.
And the list could go on.
The more we get to know about the LORD and recognize he is not a God “out there” but the personal “our” God, the more we desire to understand with clarity how we are to love him in return for all the love he has shown to us.
Like with anyone to whom we give our loyalty, the more we know them, the easier it is to love them fully.
So it is with the LORD, your God. Get to know him better and realize that when you do, it becomes more clear and perhaps easier to love him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
Apply: Choose a book of the Bible to read. List all the things you learn about God. What new thing did you discover to love him for?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for revealing yourself to us and being OUR God. We don’t deserve it, but we certainly appreciate it greatly. AMEN.
Which is most important?
Today’s devotion is based off of week 2 of Unlikely Heroes: A Teacher (WATCH HERE)
Mark 12:28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
Did you ever ask this question in school?
When your teacher presented a multi-page review of the material needed for the upcoming test, did you ask, “Do we need to know all of this? Or what is most important?”
As you think of this question, perhaps behind the question is really the desire to exert as little effort as possible to pass the test. If we know what is most important, we can focus on that and not worry about the “non-essential” material.
A teacher of the law in Jesus day was familiar with all of the law given to Moses. They would spend their days studying the law of Moses and offering their understanding and interpretation. If there was a dispute, they could act like lawyers and determine which law or application took precedence. So you can understand the question of this teacher to The Teacher. Which of the commandments is most important.
Don’t you want to know too?
Wouldn’t it be easier if Jesus woud identify a couple of the 10 and say, “If you can’t keep all of them, at least keep this one.”
In some ways, it seems like many have adopted their own answer to this question and identified the three or four they “can keep.”
Have you heart or thought..
- I haven’t killed anyone.
- I haven’t committed adultery.
- I haven’t stolen anything.
If these three were “the most important” many would be good, right?
Maybe it’s this way of thinking the teacher of the law was expecting Jesus to mimic with a few of the ten.
Rather, Jesus, the best teacher answers with two commands, neither of which are listed as part of the ten:
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
These are definitely not the easiest two, nor maybe the ones we were hoping Jesus would identify. But clearly “loving God” and “loving neighbor” ARE the two most important commands.
The profound aspect of these two commands seems to only scratch the surface for our Christian lives. However, the total inclusive nature of these two commands shows not just the profound nature of these commands, but the challenge to keep them.
Love for God is first.
Love for neighbor follows.
If the teacher told you this answer, would you pass the test? Perhaps writing these two as an answer may give us a good score from a knowledge standpoint. But as we will see, following and iving them gives us a true challenge.
Apply: As you contemplate these two commands, what do they look like as they are implemented in your life.
Prayer; Lord, thank you for your love that led you to give your laws for us to follow and by which we are blessed.
Thank you Veterans…Thank you Lord
(This devotion reposted from November 11, 2021)
“The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month”
After over four years of brutal warfare in Europe, Germany surrendered to the Allied powers ending World War I, at 11:00 AM November 11, 1918.
Perhaps this summary of the impact of World War I is a sobering reminder on this day we thank all our men and women who are willing to serve us by putting themselves in harm’s way.
World War I took the lives of more than 9 million soldiers; 21 million more were wounded. Civilian casualties numbered close to 10 million. The two nations most affected were Germany and France, each of which sent some 80 percent of their male populations between the ages of 15 and 49 into battle.
The political disruption surrounding World War I also contributed to the fall of four venerable imperial dynasties: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Turkey.
World War I brought about massive social upheaval, as millions of women entered the workforce to replace men who went to war and those who never came back. The first global war also helped to spread one of the world’s deadliest global pandemics, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 20 to 50 million people.
World War I has also been referred to as “the first modern war.” Many of the technologies now associated with military conflict—machine guns, tanks, aerial combat and radio communications—were introduced on a massive scale during World War I.
The severe effects that chemical weapons such as mustard gas and phosgene had on soldiers and civilians during World War I galvanized public and military attitudes against their continued use. The Geneva Convention agreements, signed in 1925, restricted the use of chemical and biological agents in warfare and remains in effect today. (https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/world-war-i-history)
Every war is ugly, brutal, deadly, disruptive and evil. Yet we have men and women who are willing to be ready to engage today to defend our Constitution, protect our freedoms, and combat evil where it exists. The last of World War I veterans died 10 years ago at the age of 110. There are still over 240,000 World War 2 vets alive (of the 16 million that participated). To all these and those that fought in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and any other battles around the world, you have my deepest appreciation, “Thank you for serving me…serving us.”
Service in place of self is a noble characteristic. Certainly there can be many motivations to be part of our military, but I have to think that two passages from Scripture are in many of our veterans:
Galatians 5:13 You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.
John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
Freedom can be used for many things. Thank you for using your freedom to serve others. Love can manifest in many ways. Thank you for loving your country enough to be willing to lay down your life for it, for us.
On this Veterans’ Day, remember the gift of our country is one we ought not take for granted. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Let us not just thank our veterans today, but our gracious Lord who has allowed our country to be a beacon of freedom and hope to many. Then with the freedom we have in our United States, let us be an army of God’s people who combat sin and evil not with the swords of steel but with the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.
Thank you Lord! Thank you veterans! Thank you for the freedom and love you all share with us!
Apply: Certainly take time today to thank a Veteran who has had a part in protecting the freedoms we enjoy. Resolve to use the freedom God gives to share Jesus with others around you.
Prayer: Lord thank you for men and women who are willing to put their lives on the line to protect mine. In your mercy, preserve our nation and the freedoms it allows. Disrupt and put an end to all who wish evil and harm on people and through it all let the power of your Gospel prevail. AMEN.