God's Commandments: Love as Liberation and Guidance

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In my early Christian life, I never saw it. I tried to obey; it was a struggle. It's like you get your children to take some bitter medicine or some vegetable they don't like, and you've got to make them sit there, sit there gaping at that thing on the plate. A lot of Christians are just like that. But put some chocolate or ice cream in front of them, you don't even know how to tell them. They take it straight away. Imagine going into God's commandments like that. You know you're liberated when you look at God's commandments as an expression of His love. [00:08:17]

When the Pharisees did not understand it like that, they thought it is such a burden keeping the Sabbath, and they would jump on others who didn't keep the Sabbath. They didn't understand it as an expression of God's love, and I fear that I've hardly ever met Christians in my life who see all of God's commandments in the New Testament as an expression of God's love. This is an expression of God's tremendous love for me that He tells me never to lose my temper. [00:10:06]

Most Christians, I'd say, I'd say 99% of Christians are like that. There's probably 1% of Christians I've met in my life who are very much more eager to have their inner life pure before God, their home life, their private life, their thought life, their attitudes towards people pure, more important than the external testimony. We know that an injury on the outside of our body is not as serious as something serious inside. [00:11:38]

The great commandment is love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. That's something like saying, I want you to be healthy from the crown of your head to the sole of your feet, something like that. If we heard that about our physical life, oh, that guy loves me so much he wants me to be healthy from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot, every part of me to be healthy. [00:12:32]

Like a coin has got two sides, and if the other side of a coin is blank, it's a fake. A currency note has got two sides. One side is blank, it's a fake. And a man who says I love God with all my heart, that side is right, and the other side is blank, fake. There is another side, Jesus said, and I can't leave it without telling you the other side. [00:13:39]

The whole Bible hangs on two commandments. If you obey those two, you kept it, the whole Bible: love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, love your neighbor as yourself. And that is an expression of God's love for us. When God teaches me to love my neighbor as myself, it is an expression of God's tremendous love for me that I don't get a cancer inside me. [00:14:59]

You shall have no other gods but me, and the Lord your God who brought you out of sin. For us, it is like that, out of slavery to the devil. I'm interpreting this in terms of the New Testament. You shall have no other gods but me. That's the number one commandment. How is it in the new covenant? It's exactly what Jesus said. [00:16:29]

You shall love me more than everybody else. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength. There's no place, no competition for that love. Luke 14:26 from father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, all your own life. That is the first commandment that the Lord Jesus must be absolutely supreme in my life. [00:17:11]

I will not listen to any other voice. You know, there are many times we hear other voices. Sometimes those voices are from outside, where loved ones will say to us, go on, be reasonable, don't be so extreme. I've heard that said to me. Many people will say that you're too radical, too extreme, you can't live like that in this world, just be sensible. [00:18:06]

Everything we do is an expression of gratitude to the Lord. I put it like this: I say my whole life is writing a note saying, thank you, Lord Jesus. And when I'm finished saying that, I'll die. I think I've come up to T-H-A-N. I haven't come, I still got a long way to write something, the rest of the sentence, thank you, Lord Jesus. [00:25:23]

Don't let anyone come take the place of the Lord in your life. That's the first commandment. Nobody, not your job, not your father, mother. The second commandment is, back to Exodus 20, you shall not make any idol or anything like that or worship that and serve that. Because I'm a jealous God, because if you do that, your iniquity will go down on your children. [00:26:05]

An idol is not just these physical things we don't have that, but anything that takes the place of God in our life. Like the main thing Jesus said was money. He said in Luke 16:13, you cannot love God and money. It's like telling a woman, you can't marry both these men. You have to choose. But you say he's so nice and he's also so nice. [00:27:31]

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