The Greatest Commandment and 'warm fuzzies'

One day, a lawyer came to Jesus and asked what the greatest commandment was. Even though he asked the question to corner Jesus, it was a great question.


After all, there were hundreds and hundreds of commandments when you consider all of the commands in the Old Testament and the ones the religious leaders had added. The answer to this question was the topic of intense debate among the religious leaders of that day.


So, the question would have been a great question if it hadn't been asked with wrong motives. "There are so many commands that I can't remember them all much less obey them. Which one is so basic and essential that if I got everything else wrong, I need to get that one right?"


Here's how Matthew 22:35-38 records the conversation. "And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 'Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?' And he said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.'"


Jesus took the question seriously and gave a serious answer. The greatest and most important command is to love God with everything we've got.


That's pretty straight forward. But that begs the question ... "how?" How do we love God with all of our heart, soul and mind?


In a society where we talk of falling in love or falling out of love, we equate love with a fleeting emotion. Is that what Jesus is calling us to? If so, what about those godly men and women who aren't the affectionate type? Can they obey the Greatest Commandment?


To understand how we love Jesus, all we need to do is search the Scriptures to find out how He wants us to love Him. We can rest easy that we don't have to look far and wide. Jesus gave the answer repeatedly in one of His discourses no doubt to make sure His audience got the message. 


Let me share with you what He said about how we are to love Him:


John 14:15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (emphasis added)


John 14:21 "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me..." (emphasis added)


John 14:23-24 "...If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words..." (emphasis added)


Jesus' words are clear, aren't they? If we love him, we'll obey Him. If we don't want to love him, we'll disobey. Obedience = love. Disobedience = failure to love. It's that simple.


Do you want to love Jesus with all of your heart, soul and mind and thus comply with the Greatest Commandment? Simply commit to the Lordship of Christ.


Realize that while you are God's child, you are also His slave (Romans 1:1; Philippians 1:1; Titus 1:1; James 1:1; 2 Peter 1:1; Jude 1; Revelation 1:1). He is your master. You don't belong to yourself because you were bought at a price (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). That's slave talk!


What do slaves do? It's really not that complicated. Slaves simply obey.


Show Him you love Him by diligently studying His Word and then complying with everything He commands.


And one little secret - when you develop a lifestyle of obedience, the feelings of love for the Lord will almost certainly come.

Jesus, the Church, & Marriage: I had it all wrong!

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to lead a couple in a marriage vow renewal ceremony. They had been married for 20 years and had experienced the ups and downs of a very eventful life. They wanted to celebrate the fact that as they had traveled the road of life together, they had grown closer to each other. They also wanted to recommit to remain faithful to each other as they looked to the future.

As is my practice at all marriage ceremonies, I read from Ephesians 5:22-33. No doubt you are familiar with that passage. It’s the one where husbands are told to love their wives as Christ loved the church and wives are told to submit to the loving leadership of their husbands as the Church does to Christ.

For years, I understood Ephesians 5:22-33 to be God’s word on marriage. I believed that in that passage, God provided instruction on how marriage could work best. Further, I believed the Lord gave us the relationship of Christ and the Church as an illustration to learn from and mimic.

But, unknown to me at the time, I couldn’t have been further from the truth! I completely misunderstood what God was saying!

You see, I was looking at the Bible with a very human-centered paradigm. I assumed that the main idea of the text was man-centered – how we could enjoy a great marriage. Christ’s relationship with the church was only the illustration.

With that approach to the text, I encouraged the grooms and brides to have a great marriage … for their own benefit. In doing so, even though it was not my intention, I was robbing Christ of glory. In my interpretation, there was implied no expectation to do so.

Because this text was ultimately about marriage, right? Wrong!

If only I had paid more attention to verse 32. As Paul is bringing his comments about Jesus, the Church and marriage to a conclusion, he says: “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

Mystery? What mystery? What truth has been hidden but is now being revealed? 

Paul is not saying that the principles of a good marriage have been a mystery. For thousands of years, men and women had enjoyed great marriages. 

So, what was the mystery? The mystery is how good marriages illustrate the relationship that Christ has with His Church. When a husband sacrificially loves his wife, he is illustrating to a lost world the kind of love that Christ has for us. When a wife submits to the loving leadership of her husband, she is illustrating to a lost world how believers submit to the loving leadership of Jesus.

Christ and the Church don’t provide an illustration for marriage. Marriage is an illustration of Christ and the Church.

Why is this important? Because, instead of seeing Ephesians 5:22-33 as a self-centered text on how to have a great marriage, we see marriage as an opportunity to glorify our Lord by making an invisible Jesus visible. 

We also see that there is an evangelistic purpose in having a good marriage. The lost world gets to see how loving Jesus is and how believers should follow His leadership.

Does this diminish marriage in any way? Certainly not! It actually elevates marriage and calls upon every believer to fulfill their God-given roles as husbands and wives to point people to Jesus. 

That’s a tall order! I don’t know about you but I’ve got some work to do!

Sermon (video): Is Your Heart Completely His? (2 Chronicles 16:9)

This wasn't a typical Easter sermon.

Instead of preaching on the resurrection, I preached on what the truth of the resurrection demands of us. We live in an age when the Gospel has been diminished to a prayer to "receive Christ" with little to no expectation of a change in thinking, attitudes or behaviors as a result. This is not the Gospel that Jesus died and then rose again to provide for us.

View this sermon to learn what it means to be saved ... really saved. Simply click here.

Reflections on my first 5K

I began with one primary goal - to run a sub 8 minute mile. The excitement of the race and the friendly competition helped me get it done. I ran the 5K (3.1 miles) in 24:21 minutes (7:51 pace).

Here are some pictures from this special day.

A picture with my boys before the race began.
God has really blessed Kim and me!

There were 128 registered runners.
This is moments after the horn went off and we were on our way.

About 24 minutes after the race began,
Kim took a picture of me heading toward the finish line.

Crossing the finish line. I was checking my watch
to see if the official race clock was correct. HA

I came in 40th place. There were 128 runners.
http://www.drcsports.com/Results/index.php?p=LCover

Yep. I'm as tired as I look.

The only thing better than completing my first 5K
was enjoying it with my incredible wife!

Race Day Jitters (4/7/2012)

In just a few hours, I will run my first 5K (3.1 miles) race. I think I was able to get about 6 hours sleep last night. It took some mental effort to calm myself down enough to slip off to sleep. When 4am this morning rolled around, I woke up and began thinking about the race again.

What makes this 5K race so special?

• For starters, I've never run a race that long before. Even in high school, when I was as physically fit as I've ever been, I never ran a race longer than a mile. So, today as a 41 year old, I'll run a race longer than I've ever run.

• I know that I won't win. In fact, that thought hasn't even crossed my mind. I've only been running seriously for a few months so there will most certainly be men and women who will do much better than me. But running is a personal sport. When you boil it all down, runners are competing against themselves. It's just them and the clock. Whether or not they beat others to the finish line, they are really more focused on beating their own previous time. Today, I want to run a sub-8min pace. The best I've done in my fitness training is an 8' 14" (8 minute 14 second) pace. Today, with the adrenaline and friendly competition, I want to average a mile in less than 8 minutes. That means I will need to run the 5K in 24' 48" or less.

• This is just one more step toward my understanding of being a follower of Christ. Jesus doesn't just want my mind. He wants everything which includes my body. In 1 Corinthians 6:20, it says that followers of Christ must "glorify God in your body." There are many limitations on our abilities to serve Jesus if our bodies aren't healthy and fit. In a culture that is fighting the battle of the bulge (I'm not judging; I have been guilty, too), I want to encourage others to take better care of their bodies by my example.

• I'm also looking forward to seeing my wife and sons at the finish line. Ultimately, whether or not anyone else is watching, I want my family to be inspired by my example of self-discipline. I want them to see the joy that comes as a result of hard work and focused discipline. Hearing their cheers will be icing on the cake.