The summation of humanities purpose is found in Deuteronomy 6:5 and Mark 12:28-31.
Deuteronomy 6:5 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength"
Matthew 12:28-31 "And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the most important of all?' Jesus answered, 'The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."'
This commandment is far more than an objective moral standard put in place by the whim of an almighty God. Indeed to love God is in many ways to become like God, to share with Him in life and truth and virtue, all three of which are embodied in Him. To love our neighbors is to share God with them and few joys are equal to the giving of a wonderful gift to a happy recipient. I don't feel the need to prove that fulfilling God's law allows us as God's creation to live our lives on earth in a much more healthy, wholesome, enjoyable way than any other sort of lifestyle. If you don't agree with that, I'd love to talk with you more. But let's move on.
The scriptures say,
Lamentations 3:40 "Let us test and examine our ways. And let us return to the Lord."
Throughout the scriptures a precedent is set of God testing His followers, drawing them ever closer to Himself, ever deeper into fellowship with Him. In humility He raises them up and brings those who love His law into communion with Himself. We need to be intentional about testing ourselves. God created us to love Him and others. Few people give it much thought but it needs to be an intentional process for us to figure out how we are doing in fulfilling the greatest commandment. Unfortunately there is no standardized test for Christian discipleship. There is no clear way of testing how we are doing. For this reason two things are necessary, humility and a questioning mind. It's not enough to simply look at our actions to figure out if we are following God's will. Donating money is not the same as loving the needy, going to church is not the same as fellowship with the body of Christ, setting aside time for prayer is not the same as praying. We need to understand ourselves and learn to love God not merely with our actions but with our thoughts and feelings as well.
One way to tell how we are doing in our thoughts and feelings is just to ask ourselves, what do you think about? what sort of things do you feel most of the time? Today I was thinking about the question. "Why do I get up in the morning?"
As the hours at work rolled by this question became very convicting. How many of us if given the choice would rather stay in bed than go to work or go to school? How many of us need two or three or four alarms to get us up in time for our commitments? How many of us prefer eight of being unconscious to eight hours of anything else? Is there anything in life that you'd like to do as much as you like to sleep? The only thing that comes to mind to me is entertainment stuff. Maybe I could watch tv for eight hours, maybe I could play video games for eight hours. Even these though would get boring after awhile.
It's a depressing fact that most people prefer to be unconscious than conscious. We prefer the false reality of our dreams or the non reality of unconsciousness's to the truth, beauty and order of the reality God has created. Why do I need alarms in the morning? It's very rarely because I don't get enough sleep. Alarms are necessary because I don't want to abandon the comfort and warmth of my bed for the decisions and the uncertainties and the effort that being awake will necessitate.
(To be continued)
No comments:
Post a Comment