The First Pillar of the Law
By Jim Murriner
MARK 12:28-34
"And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, which is the first commandment of all?
"And Jesus answered him, the first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord the God is one Lord:"
"And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment"
"And the second is like namely this, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."
Our text here is very inportant. What we have before us is our Lord's commentary on the first four commandments. Many words have been written and spoken by men concerning the ten commandments, yet none are as clear and as precise as these words of Christ.
The fellow who was questioning our Saviour was a scribe; one whose business it was to study and interpret, as well as copy, the scriptures. In our society today he might be a seminary professor who is also an author of bible related books. Knowing that Jesus answered the Sadducees well, this scribe set out to trick Him. He asked "Which is the first commandment----first= chiefest foremost-greatest; This scribe was asking Jesus which commandment is most important.
In this summary which Jesus gave, we are given a handle on how we are to focus our being, or our nature on the worship of God. Our worship to God cannot simply be the acceptance of some creed or some xold agreement with a system of doctrines.
Yoy are to love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength !
Now in order to know how it is that we are to do this we must understand what each of these parts of man are.
I. Heart - now here we are not talking about that blood pump inside each of us, but that central controlling factor of our existence. Prov. 4:23 tells us that out of it come all the issues of life.
"Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life"
Matt. 15:18-19 Warn us not to blame our sins on outward influences, because our sins proceed from our wicked hearts.
"But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart; and they defile the man"
"For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness, blasphemies"
We have in our society today a machine which works somewhat in the same way that we do. This machine is a computer; and the thing that makes a computer run is its program.
A computer program is a long system of instructions which has been written out in great detail, t tell the computer what to do, and if the program gets fowled up, or if the program is written improperly then the computer will do the wrong thing.
When the Lord talks about us loving the Lord with all our heart, the heart that He is talking about is this computer program within us. When you are a natural ordinary person your program has been written by Satin. Eph.2:1-3 declares this to be true.
"And you hath He Quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins."
"Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience."
"Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as other ."
If you are saved, if you are a child of God, when you were born again God wrote a new program and placed it in you. II Cor. 5:17 calls us a new creature, meaning that now we have a new nature.
"Therefore if any man be in Christ he is anew creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new."
In Heb. 8:10 it sounds as if the Lord is actually writing a new computer program within us.
"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws int their mind and will write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people."
Heb. 10:16 also speaks of God writing His law -- program in our hear.
"This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;"
Yes when you were born again God wrote a new program within our hearts-- or within us, but the problem is that we still have the ability to switch programs. Rom. 7:15-23 tells us that both programs are present with us.
"For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I"
"If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good."
"Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me."
"For I know that in me (that is in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not."
"For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do."
"Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me."
"I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me."
"For I delight in the law of God after the inward man."
"But I see another law in my members, working against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members."
Both programs are there, it is the responsibility of the Christian person to love God with all of their heart, it is our responsibility to love god with all of that program, and to so center and concentrate their activities on the laws and the precepts that God has written in that program that we begin to live an affective life style for the Lord.
Duet. 5:29 speaks of just such a life style.
"O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children forever! "
Prov. 3:5-10 tells us that the Lord will bless an active life style that is doing something, a life style that is following the word of God.
"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; lean not unto thine own understanding"
"In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths"
"Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil"
"It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones"
"Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase:"
"So shall thy barnes be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine."
We are to Love Him with all our heart, all of that central program, but this is not enough. We are to love Him with all our heart, then with all our soul.
The soul is sort of the life consciousness, the ability to feel and to think and to operate, to move, to function, and it is always connedted with the physical drive and the emotions.
Gen.34:1-3 talks of it as an inter-emotion.
"And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bare to Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land."
"And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her."
"And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly unto the damsel."
Psm. 31:9-10 describes the soul as an agony--an internal frustration, a feeling that begins to grab hold of him and doninate his thinking process.
"Have mercy upon me, O Lord, For I am in trouble: mine eye is consumed with grief. Yes, my soul and my belly."
"For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed."
God says that we are to love Him with our soul, with our feeling--with our emotions. Duet. 4:9 tells us that we are to guard our soul.
"Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons, sons:"
If we do not guard(keep-KJV) our emotions, we will begin to forget God, and become emotionally involved with something else.
And as we love God wiht our emotions we are brought in check when Jesus say's love God with your mind. [mind=intilect]
Duet. chapter six does not use the word mind. Christ inserts the word here in Mark chapter twelve, and He uses a Greek word which means "to analize carefully" You are to love God with your program, with your emotions, and now with your anilitical thinking. There must be an anilitical relationship to God, that thinks through and scrutinizes, and tests and evaulates.
The more you begin to check through the scriptures the more you see the DEMAND that is there to center the thoughts of your mind on the word of God. John 4:24 tells us that God must be worshiped in truth as well as the spirit.
"God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth."
Ii Peter 3:1-2 tells us that we need to keep in mind the words of the prophets and the commands of the apostels.
"This second epstle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by ways of remenberance."
"That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before of the apostles of the Lord and saviour."
Peter was praying that their understanding might be enlightened of that they might love God with their wnilitical thinking, that they might love God with all their mind.
The word of God is a precisely penned message from Genesis to Revelation that demands a careful student of the word of God. IITim 2:15 commands us to study the word.
"Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly deviding the word of truth"
The word "study" here comes from a Greek word that means to "work hard" and the word "shew" means to display.
The word of God is to be such a part of us that we will work hard in the word, in order that we might display to others what really in in God's word.
Isaiah 28: 13 commands us to let the word and the fight deviding of the word be such a part of us that it causes us to prenent it ti others as it is.
"But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken and snared, and taken."
Your program and emotions and now your intilect have to be loving God, and orinted to the things of the word of God, so that you can see as well as feel, so that you can understand as well as react. You have to have the drive of the soul, or emotions, but you have to have the check of the line. you have to have the motivation of the feeling, but you have to have the diredtion of the understanding.
Love God with your program, with your emotion, with your intilect, and
now love Him also with your strength.
STREGNTH something with force
In Duet. 6:5 we have the term might used instead of strength.
"And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might."
