The Law of the Lord is to Love

The one thing Christians seem to have a hard time with, when it comes to the "religion" aspect of our Faith is how easy it really is to become a follower of Christ. On many levels, this really makes a lot of sense. After all, noting worth having is simply given away, right? You work for it; you fight for it; you grab hold and never let go.

Fair enough.

Then you have that whole Law and Prophets -- more or less everything before Jesus came to the Earth. Ancient Israel certainly had to do more than just sit back and accept a free gift. Certainly, that doesn't just disappear, right?

Strangely, though Jesus Himself shows and tells us how to follow Him, it's still so easy to get caught up in "being religious."

In Matthew 5:17, Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

He gives further explanation in Matthew 22. 

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
 
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (34-40)

So, when it comes to following Jesus, the daily question I ask myself is this: why is it so much easier to try to obey "the law" -- that is, to be religious -- than it is to simply love? We're so caught up in "do"s and "don't"s that it becomes easy to judge others rather than love them.

The truth is, sometimes, Jesus is asking a lot when he asks us to love our neighbors. Other people can be rude, obnoxious, or otherwise just plain unlikeable. It's so much easier, sometimes, to cling to our religiosity and to look down our noses at all those sinners out there, and to believe ourselves to be "good people."

It's easier to forget that we, too, are fallen and that, if it weren't for the Love of Christ and the indwelling of His spirit, we, too, are just a bunch of sinful people who need a little Grace. And a whole lot of love.