The Law of Love
by Barry James Moore
Saturday, July 21, 2007
I have come to understand that God's overriding will for us is to love. We are to love God with all our heart, soul and mind, and we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus said, "'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 foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments depend the whole law."
On these two commandments depend the whole law.
It is recorded four times in three gospels (Matthew 19:19, 22:39, Mark 12:31 and Luke 10:27) that Jesus said that we should love our neighbors as ourselves, and Paul repeated it in two of his letters (Romans 13:9 and Galatians 5:14) and James also repeated that command (2:8). I believe that God is much more concerned with where I place my heart, than where I place my manhood. He is concerned far more that I love others, than any specific personal activity. If I truly Love God and all others with Godly Love, then in so doing, I keep the whole Law and the commandments.
Ten Commandments
If I love God, I will not have other gods.
If I love God, I will not worship idols.
If I love God, I will not take the name of the LORD my God in vain. (Warning to preachers who speak their own words claiming that it is God speaking: the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.)
If I love God, I will keep one day in seven holy. (My Sabbath may not coincide with your own. You may have your Sabbath on the first day of the week or on the seventh, or if your job requires you on those days, maybe you take another day to rest and spend time in worship.)
If I love others, I will honor my father and mother. (For some this is not easy, but is commanded by God, that you may have a long life.)
If I love others, I will not murder.
If I love others, I will not commit adultery. (In studying the Hebrew word here, to apostatize, I do not believe this to mean sexual infidelity only. Apostasy is the abandonment of one's faith and includes the abandonment of one's vows made before God. Whether in marriage or other vows, covenants or contracts, we are to keep our promises. To break vows is to break this commandment. We are all guilty.)
If I love others, I will not steal.
If I love others, I will not bear false witness against my neighbor.
If I love others, I will not covet. (To covet would be to "want" to break one or more of the other commandments.)
So my brothers and sisters, God's grace is at work in me. God is calling me to love. It is God who comforts me and it is God who will judge me. And it is by God's grace that I am under no condemnation.
Romans 8:1-4 (New American Standard Bible):
"Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." Emphasis is mine.
I have spent many nights over many years with my pillow soaked with tears — tears of rejection by friends and family, and tears of rejection by the church. I've cried in anguish with inner conflict over my faith and sexuality, but God has wiped away those tears. And yes, I do still cry many tears because the pain of rejection lingers, but those tears help me see more clearly.
See: He Washed My Eyes With Tears That I Might See.
