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God has a vision for mankind. He’d like us to have maximum happiness, peace, love, patience, and competent skill—what scripture refers to as blessedness—to share life with Him. Our part is to catch the vision and follow His plan, which Jesus laid out in the Sermon on the Mount and gave his life to secure for us. There, he details how to get rid of anger, ill will, judgment and other habits that poison human nature.
To love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind isn’t a demand; it’s a basic instruction, the first building block for mankind. Like a rock foundation, it supports the weight of everything else so we don’t have to carry all of life on our own backs.
It’s not as if God were stomping His foot, “Me first! Me first!” That’s prima donna faith. And He’s not Dirty Harry. “Better love me first—punk.” The greatest commandment isn’t for God’s sake, it’s for ours. So are the other nine commandments, which Jesus lumped into one: “Love your neighbor as yourself”. God’s motives are good and generous rather than self-serving.
We tend to think of the word “command” in the sense of domination, pressure, or obligation. But it also means bidding, direction, or instruction. That’s how Jesus used it. Thus, it’s not the Ten Demands, it’s really Ten Directions for optimal well-being and life—according to Jesus, anyway.
“If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.” (Mat. 19:17) Jesus and the New Testament apostles didn’t ban them, but rather, renewed and clarified them after Pharisees and experts had long perverted them. We have the same problem today, which turns following Jesus into a tedious chore to meet a divine demand.
Paradigm Shift
The discipleship life-style is easy to understand if we see Jesus’ two commands like flying lessons, musical scales, or the alphabet. A pilot can’t take off until he first learns to taxi. A musician can’t progress until he first learns the basics of scales. A child can’t read or write without learning and practicing his ABCs.
Jesus directs us to follow him the way a kindergarten teacher might say, “If anyone would come after me and learn to read, he must ‘deny’ himself and practice the alphabet every day. Anyone who doesn’t simply can’t learn from me, and isn’t ready yet for whole words.” This is what Jesus means by carrying our crosses and becoming child-like.
Like a child who didn’t learn the alphabet, and consequently crippled his reading/writing skill, so we remain crippled when we try to follow Jesus with misunderstood or contrived motives.
January 17, 2012 at 1:49 PM
God, because of His actually being God, is the only one who can worship Himself and still be good and loving. God is perfectly good and right to exalt and glorify himself, but we are not to exalt and glorify ourselves. I think God’s command to love Him can simultaneously be for God’s glory/benefit and ours all at the same time. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. God, however, is the only one who can claim that loving Him with all our mind, heart, and strength is the way to our own life of blessedness and abundance as you mentioned. He knows, as you said, that these commands are for our own good.
I also want to expound here on “denying” ourselves although you’ve probably done so in other articles or your book. Some people think it means to get rid of and deny every single thing about ourselves. That is a sad and dangerous stance because it rejects the good and admirable things that God has instilled in us for His own glory and pleasure. True, none of us is good enough on our own, without Christ, to completely please God unto salvation and blessedness; however, God does give each of us certain parts of his “image.” God has put individual things in us for his own pleasure: things like a desire to know Him, compassion for people and/or animals, appreciation for peace and beauty, skills in art or craftmanship, etc. We are not to deny these things that are shadows of God’s image and Christlikeness. We are only to deny the things/ideas/desires that reflect the sinful parts of our natures from the influence of evil in this current world and interfere with fully living in partnership with Christ in His kingdom. As you said, denial takes practice and discipline.
January 17, 2012 at 3:06 PM
I like your point about misuse of “denying” ourselves. I can’t tell you how much stuff I read from pastors and laypeople alike that invariably accuses us of “embezzling” God’s glory if we so much as mention an accomplishment. Examples: If you gave a great presentation at a business meeting, it wasn’t you; if you successfully comforted a grieving friend, it wasn’t you. If anything goes right in your life, it’s “never” you. It’s ONLY God. To say otherwise somehow robs Him, as if you have no part in living your own life…except when you screw up, of course. Then it’s all you.
This misunderstanding, ironically, denies many Scriptures and God’s greatest pleasure: to bring many “sons” to glory and share it with them. I wish more people understood that God isn’t an egomaniac with a capital E who needs us to stay “small” so He can be big!
(Rom. 8:17, 9:23, 1Cor. 2:7, 2Cor. 3:18, 2Thess.2:14, Heb. 2:10, 1Pet. 5:1)