TWO PILLARS - PART III
By Jim Murriner
We saw in our first two studies that we are to love God with all our hearts, all our soul, all our mind and all our strength.
We discovered that what is meant by loving God with all of our heart is that we are to love God with our central programming part of our being. If a love for God is central in our plans and in our program, then we will live in a way that gives glory to God.
We also noted that when we are told to love God with all of our soul, that it has to do with being emotionally involved with God, as long as you serve God with an emotional service, you will never have a desire to bring dishonor unto the name of the Lord.
Along with our program being oriented to loving God and our emotions being directed towards a love for God, our minds need to be constantly directed by the word of God, we must never have a religion that is based solely on heart feelings or on emotions.
JOHN 4:24 commands us to love God in truth.
"God is Spirit: and they that worship Him
must worship Him in spirit and in truth."
Then we saw that to love God with all our strength is to put all our efforts into loving and serving God.
If we would love God in this way then we would not be guilty or violating any of the first four of the Ten Commandments.
Since we do however violate this kind of love that Christ commands us to have towards God, then it is necessary that we trust another to save us. It has therefore become necessary for us to trust the death of Jesus Christ to be sufficient to save us.
ACTS 4:12 tells us that salvation must come by Jesus Christ.
"Neither is there salvation in any other:for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."
If you want to be saved it must by the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Then in our last study we saw that to love our neighbor as ourselves is to keep the last six of the Ten Commandments perfectly.
Oh! that each one reading this might see that salvation is by grace and not by any work which we might do.
EPH. 2:8-9 puts it this way.
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God."
"Not of works, lest any man should boast."
If you are not now trusting the Lord Jesus Christ to get you to heaven, may you now as we look deeper into the thought of loving our neighbor as ourselves, be convicted that you are a sinner and that you deserve to go to hell, and then may God give you grace to trust Jesus Christ as your own saviour.
If you are already a child of God, may you now be made to realize that the things which we call service to God, falls far short of that which God requires, and then let us stop being proud of who and what we are and have a more Christ like attitude towards those about us.
MATT.22:39 gives us a command.
"and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
THIS IS A VERY HARD THING!
If we are going to follow Jesus we must accept this thing.
Not only are we to be positive in our praying and doing good for our neighbor, but we are never to retaliate.
MATT.5:39-40 needs to be taken seriously by all of those who call themselves Christians.
"But I say unto you, that ye resist not
evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on
thy right cheek, turn to him the other
also."
"And if any man will sue thee at the law,
and take away thy coat, let him have thy
cloak also."
Along about now someone is probably saying "but wait a minute, I've got my rights as an American citizen."
Just whose citizen are you? Do you belong to the United States or to the Lord?
PHIL.3:20 tells us that our citizenship is not in this world.
"For our conversation (citizenship) is in heaven;
from whence also we look for the
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ."
Are you looking for the saviour today or are you too busy insisting upon your rights to look for Him?
We hear a lot about rights today, but very little about responsibilities.
Just where in the bible do we find all of these rights that we constantly insist that we get?
The only rights that the bible declares us to have are all based upon Christ dying to pay for our sins, therefore they are by grace and are special privileges which have been given us eventhough we did not deserve them.
If you are saved today, then you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, and you need to do things His way.
ICOR. 6:20 tells us that salvation brings responsibility.
"For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body,and in your spirit which are God's"
We are to live in a way that we bring glory unto God, and when we are always crying out for our civil rights and always retaliating, we are not bringing glory unto God.
Your views of loving your neighbor, and my views of loving my neighbor does not always agree with what god has to say about loving our neighbor.
Remember when the lawyer asked Jesus who was his neighbor, how that Jesus made it clear that even those who we would be inclined to have, and those who hate us, are our neighbors. Anyone that we associate with or have dealings with, these are our neighbors.
Strange isn't it that so called Christians speak of the golden rule until you begin to do business with them, then they have a different character, then they live by a different code of ethics.
MATT. 5:43-48 gives us a great insight into how we are to deal with all of our neighbors, at home, at church, at school, and in the business world.
(43)
"Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor, and have thine enemy."
(44)
"But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despiteful use you, and persecute you;"
(45)
"That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and unjust."
(46)
"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?"
(47)
"And if ye salute your brethern only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?"
(48)
"Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven."
You might try to stand before God in your own perfection, but (vs48) here tells us that our perfection must not be by our own standards, but by the standards of our Father which is in heaven.
We said that it is very hard to turn the other cheek and to not retaliate when someone has done us wrong.
Now here in (vs 44) our Lord is giving us a command, which strips away all our pride, and causes us to hang our heads in shame as we plead "I am guilty, Have mercy on me O' Lord."
It is your nature to always strike back, it is your nature to always even out the score. It is your nature if your neighbor, your business associate steals one dollar from you to turn the tables on him and steal it back, and all to often to steal it back with interest.
It is no wonder that lost sinners all around us refer to churches as a bunch of hypocrites.
When our Lord tells us to love our neighbor. He is talking about a gracious affection properly displayed to all of those that we come in contact with.
ROMANS 13:10 makes a loud decree concerning love which condemns us all.
"Love worketh no ill to his neighbor,
therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."
Love does no evil to another. When we do evil one to another it is because love is not there in sufficient force.
In MATT 5:45 the statement is made that the reason for us to show such a great love even unto our enemies is so "that ye may be the children of your Father."
We do not become saved by showing a proper love to our neighbor, but we do show those around us that we are children of God by the love that we show.
ICOR. 13:1 tells us that if we do not have love that all of our preaching of the truth becomes just so much noise.
"Though I speak with the tongues of men
and of angels, and have not charity, I a
am become as sounding brass, or a
tinkling symbol."
We who have experienced the saving grace of God will begin again to love our neighbors and not always look for revenge.
HEBREWS 10:30 tells us that God will take care of the revenge.
"For we know Him that hath said, Vengeance
belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. and again, The Lord shall judge his people."
King David knew what it was to love his neighbor even when his neighbor was his enemy.
In ISAMUEL 26:8-10 David said that it was up to God to do vengeance.
"Then said Abishai to David, God hath delivered thine enemy into thine hand this day; now therefore let me smite
him, I pray thee, with the spear even to the earth at once, and I will not smite him the second time."
"And David said to Abishai, Distroy him not: for who can stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointed, and be guiltless."
"David said furthermore, as the Lord liveth, the Lord shall smite him; or his day shall come to die; or he shall
descend into battle and perish."
Until you and I learn to treat all our neighbors just as we want to be treated, and just as we treat family and close friends, we are in violation of this commandment of our Lord.
So as we conclude this series of messages on the two pillars of the law, two things become very clear.
First we see that it is absolutely necessary that Christ die for our sins, because they are many, even in regard to this love which we are to have to our neighbor, and therefore we can never even begin to pay for our own sins, but we must trust that Jesus Christ paid the complete penalty of our sins. That He became our substitute, that He suffered for all our sins.
Then second we see that much of the service that you and I offer unto God, just does not measure up to what God demands, so while we take great pride in our so called service to God, He does not even accept our sorry excuse for service.
Lost sinner won't you turn from what ever your hope is in this day and put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ to save you.
Child of God, why not ask God to forgive you of your pride, and for your attempt of serving God in your own way, and then ask God to cause you to do service to God by His standards.
