The Law of Love

Think of the most difficult class you ever took.  For me it was physics. Science and math were not my strong points. I’m a word person, but I needed another science in high school and one of my best friends somehow convinced me it would be fun to take physics together. As it turned out, we did not end up in the same class, and she was never available to help me with homework, so I was on my own. 

I remember sitting with my open text book and a dictionary, crying because I could not, for the life of me, understand what the text book was saying. I had never struggled like this in any other class. Looking back, if my teacher had come to me and said that he was giving me an A in the class so I wouldn’t have to be afraid of failure and that he would then teach me the material at my own pace, in a way that even I could understand, my joy and relief would have known no bounds.

The analogy I have used many times over the years in my Senior High Sunday School Class is just like that. In the Class of Salvation the stakes are high. We are required to have a perfect score, unable to miss one point, or we are eternally lost.  But Jesus offers to give us an A, the A he earned, and he in turn takes all of our missed points, all of our failures, as his own. Then, he gives us the Holy Spirit as our personal tutor, who provides a personally designed course of study to help us learn the material, in ways that even we can understand. The fear of failure is removed, and that makes all the difference!

My blog entitled The Law of Moses was comprised only of scriptures which talked about Jesus fulfilling the law of Moses for us by his life, death and resurrection.  That is the A he obtained for us. The righteous requirements of the law were met by Jesus, for us. The fear of failure is removed.

The verses below, then, are the key to the rest of what God intends for us – the personally designed course of study to help us learn the material.  “…we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.” (Romans 7:6) With confidence that we are not condemned for the many times we will fail, we have a “new” standard (which is really the original; much older than the law of Moses). It is Christ's command to love others in the way we have been loved. 

This “law of love”, is intended to be used by the Holy Spirit as the transforming agent in our lives. There is no more need to try and remember all the endless rules of do’s and don’ts. Now there is just one thing to remember, Love others the way God in Christ loved you.        

Granted, it’s a higher standard, maybe more difficult than all of the endless rules, but as we measure our thoughts and actions against it we are challenged to learn and grow; we are encouraged to become like the one who first loved us and asks us to pass that love along – not to earn our salvation, but to share what we have been given.

Again, please read them all. Read together they are so powerful!

1 John 3:23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

Galatians 5:14
The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself.

James 2:8 If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right.                                                                      

Romans 13:8-10  Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Galatians 6:2
Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

John 13:34-35. A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

John 15:16-17  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.

1Peter 4:8  Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

1John 4:9-11  This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

John 15:9-12  As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.