“Oh How I Love Thy Law”: What We Love When We Love God, part 6
“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength… [And] You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” – Jesus, in Mark 12:30-31
Our God is truly lovely.
He is worthy of our heart’s deepest feelings and commitments. He is Holy, Holy, Holy, dwelling in unapproachable light, yet approaching us with love in all things, through Jesus Christ. His Words are like Honey, more precious than gold. The world He made is filled with His glory. (Isa 6:3) And His wondrous works, when considered, demand to be not just appreciated, but sung—declared enthusiastically with joy!
Amen and amen.
And all of these considerations are drawing us toward better understanding what Jesus meant when He told us to “love your neighbor as you love yourselves.” (Mat 2:37-39) Somehow, what it means to love God with our hearts, souls, minds, and strength, will teach us in how to love each other well.
Onward.
The psalmist declares, Oh! How I love Your law! And, I love Your testimonies… Your commandments… Your precepts… (Psa 119:97, 113, 119, 127, 159, 163)
And in the same chapter, the psalmist says, Be gracious to me as is Your way with those who love Your Name. (Psa 119:32)
So we see that to love God for who He is—“loving Your Name”—means loving what expresses who He truly is. And who He is, is expressed by His stated desires, or His will—which the Bible also calls God’s commands, testimonies, precepts, and so on.
When we pray, with Jesus, “Our Father in Heaven… Your will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven.” (Mat 6:10) We are saying, “O God, we love You and we love Your will, as You outline it in Your Word.”
Part of what we love, when we say we love God, is we love His will.
We love what happens wherever God rules and reigns. We love what would happen, if His laws were obeyed everywhere by everyone.
What would happen?
Perfect, righteous, justice—no more cheating, lying, stealing, bribing, no more back-room deals between the rich and powerful, which the poor pay for and suffer from, no more abuse, exploitation, buying and selling of people, the dehumanizing debasement that turns innocents into victims into perpetrators, no more might-makes-right, finders-keepers, ends-justifies-the-means.
Perfect, righteous, mercy—no more over-reacting, unreasonable, reactive violence or eye-for-an-eye vigilante vengeance, no more rule of law as a weapon of the powerful for furthering injustice and protecting the wicked.
Perfect, righteous, wisdom—we would always find the middle-way, by the Spirit of God, within the will of God, between justice done unjustly, and mercy done ineffectively, just as Jesus did.
The will of God delivers justice, mercy, and does so with astonishing wisdom.
When the Queen of Sheba visited King Solomon in Jerusalem, it says that, “When the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon… there was no more breath in her.” (1Kings 10:4-5)
She found some breath, though, to continue, praising God: “Blessed be the LORD your God, who has delighted in you and set you on the throne of Israel! Because the LORD loved Israel forever, He made you king, that you might execute justice and righteousness.”
Indeed, this was the mandate of God’s King—to execute God’s justice and righteousness, reliant upon God, with God’s own wisdom.
Yet, as the story turns, Solomon forsook the wisdom of God, and with it, justice and righteousness. The kings of Israel, following his example, ushered in idolatry, violence, bribery, injustice, abuse, exploitation… so that, just as in the days of Noah, God again wiped the land clean of their wickedness.
But then came The True Servant of the LORD, the one described in Isaiah 42, the true King of Israel, the fulfillment of every Covenant-Hope:
“I will put My Spirit upon My Servant, and He will proclaim Justice to all the world. He won’t riot in the streets or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear His voice—a bruised reed He will not break… a smoldering flame He won’t blow out… yet He will certainly see that My justice is victorious! And in His Name everyone will find hope.” (Isa 42:1-3; Mat 12:18-20)
Observe the wisdom of Jesus Christ, in answering the most difficult questions put to Him:
For three days, the child Jesus taught the teachers of Israel: “And all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers.” (Luk 2:47)
When Jesus taught the crowds, at the beginning of His adult ministry, “they were astonished at His teaching for He was teaching them as one who had authority.” (Mat 7:28, Luk 4:32)
After the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes tried to trap Jesus with tough questions and failed at it, “No one was able to reply to Jesus, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask Him any more questions.” (Mat 22;48; also, Luk 14:4, 6)
When these same leaders of the people sent soldiers to arrest Jesus, they returned empty handed, saying, “No one ever spoke like this man!” (John 7:46)
It was not Jesus’ skills as a debater that set Him apart. No, what set Jesus apart, and silenced his opponents and amazed all who heard Him, was His wisdom. He knew what was right and wrong, He knew what was good and best. He knew the Word and Law of God, and He knew how to bring the true heart of God to be. And He did it.
Jesus delivered the Will of God with the perfect, obvious, simplicity and beauty that forever alludes us, apart from His work in our lives.
We love Jesus, in part, for the ways that, in Him, we get to see the perfect will of God being done on earth just as it is done in heaven.
There is a narrow path that we cannot seem to walk, between justice and mercy—we get tough on crime, and end up acting like criminals; we try being gentle on criminals, and end up with more crime. But Christ always does justice, with mercy, in surprising ways. And where He rules over our hearts and lives, new paths emerge before us, that are both right and lovely.
What we love when we say we love God is, in part, as seen most clearly in Jesus, the loveliness of God's will.
PRAYER
Father, we pray, as Christ taught us, Let Your Will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven. And we ask, Lord, for Your forgiveness and forbearance, as we struggle with the idea that our will, or some other person’s will, might be an improvement on Yours. Though there are certainly verses in the Bible, commands and precepts, that seem strange to us, yet protect us from forgetting the perfection of Your heart—that You are good, always—and of Your position—that You see and know all things, always—and of Your wisdom—that You know what is right, just, and merciful, and how to bring it about. Help us to trust You as we trust Christ Jesus, and help us to delight in Your will, by obedience and by commending faith and obedience to others. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Photo by Peter Stawowy on Unsplash