If you are anything like me when you hear the words devoted to God, a list of dos and don’ts probably springs to mind. Do read your bible. Don’t swear. Do devote x amount of time to prayer. Don’t have sex outside of marriage. Do tithe. Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain. Etc. Etc. ETC. Sometimes it can seem more than a little overwhelming!
If my devotion to God was based entirely on my commitment to the above things, I’m going to be honest I would fail on many of these things a LOT of the time. But despite all this I would 100% definitely call myself a devoted follower of Christ. So I started thinking, what is my devotion truly based on? Is it my ability (or lack of) to “follow the rules” that determines my position on the “how devoted are you” scale? Or is it something else – something more?
I was listening to a podcast recently about living a life of love. It was based around a scripture in Matthew 22 where a Pharisee approaches Jesus and asks him the question “which is the greatest commandment?”. Pharisees were interpreters of God’s law – their whole life was about determining the “right way” to be devoted to God – what you could do, what you couldn’t do, what you should do, what you shouldn’t do – in total they had over 600 different rules to follow! Whew! I find it hard enough to remember the rules to monopoly.
As you can imagine it was incredibly difficult for your “average Joe” to get these right all the time. And the Pharisees were not particularly gracious to anyone who didn’t meet any one of their hundreds of different rules! Add on top of this that there was disagreement and debate between the Pharisees themselves as to which commandments were the most important and some laws contradicted other laws… as you can imagine things were pretty confusing.
The problem was that all of these laws that the Pharisees had were concerned with the external – with the works of a person rather than the heart of a person. This was in complete contradiction to the values that Jesus was speaking about at the time. It’s really easy for us to fall into the same trap that the Pharisees did and base our devotion to God on our works rather than what really matters – our relationship with him.
So the Pharisee asked Jesus the question – “Which is the greatest commandment?” – Luke’s account says to “test” Jesus. I suspect he was trying to trap him into having to make a choice, pick a side, make him unpopular with certain groups and in the process turn some of his followers against him. The Pharisees had become proud. They thought they were better than other people and they were afraid that if people started believing in Jesus’ teachings, the people would no longer follow them. They were afraid to lose their wealth and power.
But Jesus, being God, was never going to be outsmarted by a question like this. I don’t think the Pharisee could have realised who he was talking to. (Either that or he thought he was smarter than God – what an ego!) Jesus gave an answer that, far from elevating any one commandment over another, encompassed every law and focused in on the reason for the laws in the first place.
“And [Jesus] said to him “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the laws…” – Matthew 22:37-40
Jesus directed the external laws back to the very reason that we do any of it in the first place, from the external to the internal – the foundation from which we are able to carry out God’s commands, from which our drive to devotion comes from. Love.
We need to remember that our devotion to God isn’t about us at all. It isn’t about our ability to live up to a set criteria or list of rules of dos and don’ts. It is all about him, our love for him and everything that we do must stem from, flow from this as our centre. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that the dos and don’ts aren’t important. Far from it. God has given us these boundaries because he wants the absolute best for us and keeping his commandments is for our protection. But what I am saying is that none of these things by themselves will bring about the best for us – none of them are sustainable or effective if we don’t first get our motives right before God (1 Corinthians 13).
I also believe that within those words that Jesus spoke he was giving us all the help we need to fulfil these commandments – details to remind us what devotion to him is all about.
1] love the Lord your God
2] with all your heart, soul and mind
3] love your neighbour as yourself
Over the next few posts, I am going to explore each of these instructions, one at a time, looking at who it is that we are called to be devoted to, what this devotion looks like and why God requires this devotion anyway – a life of devotion from love.
Thank you that you love us and that it is through this love that we are able to love.
I understand that all you have commanded is for my best and the best for others.
Thank you God that you have given us all the instruction we need to live a life devoted to you.
Please help me to learn to love you more and devote myself wholly to you.
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