108 HOW MUCH?
108 HOW MUCH?
The Old Testament is full of rules and regulations for the conduct of God’s people; for them to be able to please Him. For God to be angry with or at you, is to not go to heaven when you die, not have happiness or peace of mind in this world and to only live for the here and now pleasures and desires; in other words, no hope for the future only gratification now.
But to struggle to memorize and do every single one of those rules and regulations is an impossible task. By the time that Jesus came into the world to show mankind how it was done, the Jewish people had over 3000 rules specifically detailing how far each rule would let a person go and where they had to stop before braking that rule.
Jesus’ ‘New Covenant’ wasn’t a different way of doing things by nullifying God’s old laws; which wrote out ‘do this’ and ‘don’t do this’.
Jesus’ ‘New Covenant’ was a new agreement between Him and His people because He took the payment for our sins [failing to do it God’s way and not pleasing Him] on Himself, paid that debt to God and, then, said ‘follow me and I’ll show you how it is done’.
Love is described by some as ‘wanting the best for’, but you could also add ‘at the sacrifice of me’. God loved so much that He sacrificed His son and Jesus loved so much that He sacrificed His life. Both of these things would be considered wrong in our eyes but are right in God’s eyes because of why they were done.
So, it is not a matter of ‘what we do’ but ‘why we do it’.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying that a person should stay home from church just because they think it is full of sinners. It is and that is why you should be there; so we can all correct ourselves together.
To fill your life with good habits is not a bad thing. The habit of going to church is better than the habit of going to the bars but that ‘developing religious habits’ is exactly what the Old Testament religion done. They and we, sometimes let the habits become the ruler in our life and, sometimes, to the displeasure of God.
When a soul is sitting in a church service but is heartbroken inside from a destroyed marriage or some other hurt and you know about it; there is a quiet way to leave your seat, get to that person and comfort them without announcing to the whole congregation that you are doing that.
You see, Jesus said ‘love’ pleases God; love that listens to Him, love that obeys Him, no matter what He asks and love that trusts Him, no matter what He says. Before you condemn someone’s actions, find out why they did what they did. Ask God to show you, ask them to explain or, if it has no bearing on you, leave it alone.
How much we love God or how much we do not love God will be shown to everyone else by how much we obey what He asks us to do, whenever He asks us to do it.
You may have to reject a person to show that you love God, you may have to get angry at someone to love God first and you may have to suffer the consequences of these actions to show them that they are wrong and that you have chosen God’s friendship over theirs.
Jesus went the way His father told Him to because He loved Him and His friends followed Him; He did not follow His friends and His friends showed how much they loved Him by following Him with all their heart and to the end.
