Abide in My Love
Jesus said to his disciples, "As the Father has loved me, so have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love."
John 15:9-17
Keeping the commandments is not easily done. It requires love, care, patience, respect and honesty, among other things. We have the following list from the Bible: “You shall have no other God but me; you shall not make or worship any idols; do not take the name of your God in vain; keep Holy the sabbath day; Honor your father and mother; do not murder; do not commit adultery; you shall not steal; do not bare false witness; do not covet.” These Ten Commandments had been expanded to 613 rules by the time of Jesus. There were 365 thou-shall-not rules and 248 thou-shall rules. For devout Jews, these had become rules for everyday living.
Then in Matthew 22:36-40, the Pharisees asked Jesus, "Which of these commandments is the greatest of all." His answer was, “Love the Lord you God with all your heart; with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. The second resembles it; you must love neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the whole law and the prophets."
The theory is the Pharisees wanted to trap Jesus and use His answer against Him. It is also believed that they wanted to identify the one commandment that they could not transgress and could then rationalize their way around some of the others. This could be done by saying "thou shall not" -- except under the following circumstances, X, Y, or Z. Or perhaps one could also say that the situation is such that it would be okay this time. Or maybe even “the rule really does not apply to me.” Oh, my! Does any of this sound familiar?
The central ingredient to what Jesus is saying is that love is the greatest commandment. With love in our hearts, we can more nearly honor, respect and keep the commandments that God has given us to live by.
To quote Dane Orthund in his book Gentle and Lowly, "Open the vent of your heart to the love of Christ, who loved you and gave himself for you. Our law-ish hearts relax as his lavish heart comes home to us."[1]
With this kind of love in our heart and soul, our response to our Lord and our neighbor will be more genuine. Remember that when we sometimes fall short of keeping the commandments, both to the letter and/or spirit of the law, that our Lord loves us so much that we can be forgiven.
[1] Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund P. 188.
