Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
I am glad we can meet again today.
The Bible Text for today is:
34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " ’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ’Love your neighbor as yourself.’[c] 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
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Bothers and Sisters, you probably already know about this passage of the scripture and even memorize it by heart. The problem is how can we do it?
Well over the years living as a Christian I was thinking that all I have to do was trying the very best to worship God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I find out that this method was not sucessful at all. It was seem to work for sometime, but sure enough it would fail given certain amount of time.
The problem was not that I want to do it. But the problem is that I did it out of my own strength.
Brothers and Sisters, let’s open and read from John 14:15 Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” Here we find out that according to the word of God, if we love Jesus, then we will be able to keep the commandments.
So, you see that keeping the commandment is related to having a love relationship with Jesus. Aha, something in me is enlightened. Now I know that I need to keep my love relationship with Jesus strong.
But next, how do I do it? Do I try my best again to keep my love relationship with Jesus. I’ve tried those too. And to tell you the bad news, I have failed. I failed to pray and have a quiet time every morning as I should. Sometime, I even failed to go to church and attend the communion.
Sometime, I failed to notice to become a good person. I would yell to my wife when arguing with her. And when it happened I’ve sinned, and when I sinned my relationship with Jesus suffered.
So, what the use then. We cannot even keep our relationship with Jesus. Brothers and Sisters, take courage because our help comes from God. 1 John 4:1 says "We love, because He first loved us."
Once again the Word of God enlighten our path to victory. It says there that because God first loved us, we can also learn from God and love like He loves us.
So in fact, our Father in heaven has sent Jesus to teach us how to love by loving us till death on the cross. A love that is so strong that enable us to live as Christian. He paved a way for you and me to become children of God.
That example, brothers and sisters, is what God has given us. In fact the love of Christ is flowing everyday to each believer who is abiding in Him and trusting in Him.
Here is a final conclusion from 1 John 5:3 "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome."
Read this precious Word of God and meditate that upon your heart and you will know that in the beginning it is God who loves us. And then we learn how to love him. And then we learn to obey His commandments.
Let us close with a prayer:
Dear God, I was misserable to do your commandment out of my own strength. But praise be to your Son Jesus who has shown us the love that we need to follow you.
In His precious name we pray, Amen.
