I remember when I just became a Christian, I thought that God was a taskmaster. I didn’t really understand what Jesus meant when He had said that when we saw Him, we would have seen the Father. I also thought Jesus was just about the rules even though He showed so much compassion and mercy. He even went against pharisaical beliefs and healed the sick on the Sabbath.
I believe in discipline, and really wanted to know the rules to follow them to be a “good” Christian. I felt if I performed well then God would love me, and He would want me in heaven as a reward for my good performance. I was very active in church ministries, and I tried very hard to be what I considered to be a good Christian, but it was tiresome and burdensome as I strove for perfection. I felt I needed the rules, the church doctrines and the traditions to get to heaven, but I was wrong. Those things were not getting me closer to heaven or most importantly God. I was not loving Jesus more and I was definitely not loving people more. I didn’t realize that I had to cease striving to know God. I was too busy doing things in my own strength and did not stop to spend time with God, the One I was supposed to love. If you love someone you will want to spend time with them and while being in that person’s presence, you start becoming more like him or her. However, my lack of time with God because I was so preoccupied with doing things which I thought were for Him and also following man-made doctrines, only led me to become more self-righteous and judgmental as I fell prey to the spirit of legalism.
You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. Galatians 5:4-6
Now we must obey God because that is how we show we love Him. The Holy Scriptures and the Spirit of Truth will reveal to us how to do this. Following church doctrine may, however, move us further from loving Christ as we are into performance rather than having an intimate relationship with Him. And it is through this intimate relationship that we become more like Him, and we are sanctified. Obeying Him should not just come out of duty but it should come out of love because we want to please the One we love. When we truly love God, we will do it with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all our minds, and with all our strength. Therefore, our thoughts, our actions and every fiber of our being will be submitted to this love as we seek to please Him.
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. 1 John 2:15-16
I am learning that we have to come to the end of ourselves, so that we can truly experience God’s love. We have to leave behind all lusts of this world and our pride, which may come from affluence, influence, education, appearance or whatever it may be. We may have to leave behind things that we dearly love to love God and follow His will, which many people around us may not understand and may even mock us because of it.
And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first. Matthew 19:29-30
To love Jesus more, we will have to humble ourselves as we submit to His will for our lives, no matter the hardships that we may encounter. We may have to leave a lot behind, even the beliefs we have had all our lives so that we no longer walk in the flesh doing what we think is good, but instead be led by the Holy Spirit to do God’s best. When we love Jesus more, we will walk freely in His truth and His light, letting go of self-righteousness and legalism, which are about us and not about Him. It is not easy to love Jesus with all that we have. We may be scorned, rejected and persecuted by many, but we can go through all these challenges with joy and peace as we continue loving Jesus more and experiencing His love for us.
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