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February 23, 2009 - The Greatest Challenge

I’ve always been competitive. I like challenges. Maybe that is why I still bow hunt, play basketball with my grandson, and occasionally compete in a fishing tournament.

But the greatest challenge to me doesn’t have anything to do with sports, hunting, or fishing.  It has to do with loving those who have created stress for me or my family.  Sometimes the challenges are seen and direct.  Many times they are attacks that come from people who don’t agree with my spiritual orientation.

Exodus 20 records for us the Ten Commandments and is the clearest explanation in the Bible of God’s moral law.  From it, we can understand right from wrong; however, the intent God must have had was deeper than what was given to Moses. 

The Law goes much deeper. Jesus summed up the depth of God’s laws with this statement: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." "And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’" Matthew 22:37,39 (NIV)

You see the Pharisees labored to distinguish important laws from the less important ones.  Jesus blew their artificial system away when he pointed to the simple way one could fulfill the entire Law - by loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves.  Jesus made the point that God made us for relationships.  He created us in His image so that we could have a relationship with Him (vertical) and model life, truth, love, joy, and peace to all those we know (horizontal). 

Unfortunately, human sin fractured that relationship, but God made a way through Jesus Christ for that relationship to be restored.  Love for God is our highest calling and the path to true fulfillment as a human being.  Love for God and His ways always leads to love for one’s neighbors.  Although the world says, “Look out for yourself,” true happiness is found when we put the needs of our family, friends, neighbors, and even total strangers before our own. 

As difficult as it may be, we need to learn to love the unlovely.  We don’t have to love their sin, their behavior, their appearance, or their attitudes, but we need to learn to love the individual.  When we learn to really love God, we will be drawn to love others.  When we do this, our lives will become happier and less prone to focus on the negativity in the world.

Praise God!  Let’s focus on loving God and then others this week.

P.S. - Thank you so much for praying for our Iron Sharpens Iron event in Castro Valley, CA last Saturday, February 21st. God's spirit showed up in a powerful way and many men were encouraged and inspired. To God be the glory!