Dear Trekker,

Some of the responses of Jesus to the questions of the Pharisees are difficult to understand. Of course, I speak for myself, but maybe you have found this true as well. Jesus’ (God) answers are always true, complete, congruent and leading us to further understand the “good news.” You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink” is a wonderful old aphorism, but we are not horses and we are always thirsty for God’s truth! (At least we have been created so to be.) Are we thirsty? (John 7:37-39).

There is no more perplexing response to the Pharisees that affects me similarly than Jesus’ words to them when asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” Forget for a moment why they asked the question. That is not significant (see Mark 12:28-34; Matthew 22:34-40). What is significant is Jesus answered not with one commandment, but with two. The language is telling. The Matthew account says, “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 (rest) on these two commandments.” Why two verses instead of one?

Eugene Peterson’s latest book (2017, and last he says) is As Kingfishers Catch Fire. It is a compilation of sermons preached during his 29-year sojourn as a pastor in Bel Air, Maryland. Peterson points out that the first time love is used as a verb in Scripture is in Leviticus 19:18. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Significant that the “law review” of the day (Leviticus) first introduces the underlying foundation of law, i.e. love. Significant indeed… the difference between man’s legalism and Godly thinking, which is always relational and glued together irreparably by love.

For weeks now I have been plumbing the depths of my own “thirstiness” and meditation to determine the why of Jesus’ answer. Why are these commandments so linked that Jesus, the Master Teacher, does not separate them? Could it be they are two sides of the same coin…of love? Indeed, one is hollow without the other. One can’t love God and hate one’s self or other people. We can’t love people and hate God. There is no congruency there. One begets the other. Love is always the deciding factor. The little Gospel song, “They will know we are Christians by our love” is good theology. Indeed the greatest evangelical tool available to the world of believers seeking to witness well is the old standby…love (John 13:34-35).

Some things ought to be abundantly clear to all trekkers. God normally does His work in creation through persons. That is why, principally, He chose to become one of us. God is God and man is man, but when God wanted to reconcile man to Himself, He chose to become one of us. God knows better than we that only people (of all creation) have the capacity to love because love is a choice, a response to God’s love and “each other’s” love. (Trekker, don’t spaz off into the animal world… animals operate by instinct and learned responses activating instincts. They do not weigh pros and cons and have no known capacity to do so.) Another truth emerges…when God says, “love your neighbor as yourself” it is clearly a command to follow for our own welfare and well-being. We can conclude…God’s commands are intended to be lived out, not lipped out. They can be lived (and must be) to preserve relational harmony in all human relationships. The x factor in the life of the believer is this love ingredient; so naturally, it is a fruit of the Spirit who resurrects us to new, Christ-filled and Christ-like life. Our job is to trust and obey because there is no other way! Love and new life in Christ (II Cor 5:17) are like bread and butter. They go together, though even more so.

Love, a wonderful, life-changing concept flowing from the nature of God (who is love), must be worked out, fleshed out in our lives. When it is, it changes the world. No wonder that love is the most written about truth the world has ever known. But love is always dependent on the person ingredient. The person always incarnates whatever form of love is occurring. Of course there are different forms of love, but each is activated by personhood, given back to God or to  each other. It is personal, intentional, transactional and foundational, always begetting additional love, as ripples ever expand across a pond.

The Scriptures are replete with our need to love in every conceivable equation or situation of life. The Scriptures have to be clear because love is one of the most abused, messed-up, perverted and misused words in the language of all men. Fast forward to St. John’s first letter of the New Testament. (Read it now, trekker. It’s only five short chapters.) This is the capstone of all Scripture on love, encapsulating Psalms, the Prophets, the Gospels and Letters. John’s hearers were pretty much like us…they lied (I John 1:6), and hated (2:11) too. But I need and desire to quote Peterson here… “The love first commanded in Leviticus has to be unforced, personal and freely given. Ours must be a lifetime of accumulated acts of love – likely flawed, imperfect, juvenile, sputtery – but still love, despite ourselves, loyal love.”

What I have concluded is love must be “worked in” by the Spirit and worked out by and in our lives. So we get going with our “love salvation” to the world with fear and trembling knowing that God is at work within us, commanding us to love (Phil 2:13,14) and change our world through Him within. A concluding thought by Peterson is so applicable as we seek to live this glorious deep truth: “Love is the most context-specific act in the entire spectrum of human behavior. A dictionary is worthless in understanding and practicing love. Acts of love cannot be canned and then used off the shelf. Every act of love requires creative and personal giving, responding and serving appropriate to context-specific to both the person doing the loving and the person being loved.” Amen! And every form of love is God created and given to be used with one another…in God’s way and in His time.

Trekker let’s let Jesus be our example. “We know love by this, that He (Jesus) laid down His life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (I John 3:16). Notice the tie in of John 3:16 and I John 3:16. Coincidence…I doubt it. Friend to friend, let’s work out the details of love in our lives, ever personal and transactional and relational, but always the Jesus way. We are empowered by His Spirit to love because He first loved us (I John 4:19).

From one aspiring lover to another,

Jim Meredith