Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
As leaders, we don’t lead others to know the commands of God. We lead them to know His love. To know His love, we must know His presence in our lives in an intimate and powerful way. God desires a connection with us, not merely obedience to the instructions of His words. The law holds the power of death, but only God’s presence in our lives holds the power of life and peace.
2 Peter 1:2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Knowing God our Father and Jesus our Lord, produces the fruit God glory and goodness. The promises of God are given to us so that we will be partakers of God’s divine nature. They are not given so that we will simply receive rewards for obeying His voice. Only a relationship with Him can produce the fruit of becoming like Him in our hearts.
The testimony of the law is love. The law can be summed up in two statements. Those statements are a love for God and love for one another. These were commands in the Old Covenant, but commands alone cannot transform our hearts and minds.
Matthew 22:34-40 (NKJV) 34 But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” 37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
The law and the prophets depended upon commands to love God and one another, but humanity could not love God and one another based upon a command of law. Jesus gave a new commandment to His disciples. That commandment was to love one another even as He had loved them, that they would love one another.
John 13: 34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
This New Covenant command was based upon a revelation of God’s love. Only a revelation of God’s love will inspire a commitment of love. The source of our commitment to a relationship with God or one another must be a revelation of God’s love for us. When we know how much God loves us, we are inspired to know how much God loves others. Only a revelation of God’s love can create a true commitment that will empower the actions of our lives towards God and others. Love is a revelation, not a commandment of law to love another.
James 4:11 Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?
Since the law is a shadow of the testimony of love only found in our hearts by God’s presence, to judge ourselves or others by the law is to miss the testimony of the law. The law is a shadow of love, and love makes judgments according to God’s eternal mercy in all things. To be a doer of the law is to be loving in our hearts and minds towards others.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
Bellingham, WA 98225-1728
