"He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me" (John 14:21)
Just what are these commandments, which I must obey in order to show Him that I love Him?
Yeshua answered: "The foremost is, 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is One, and 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.' The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these" (Mark 12:29-31).
The Shema is a statement of faith and truth, as well as the prayer that finds its way up from the depths of our heart to become precious words in the sight of Yah that are uttered from our lips. These words are not only a statement of faith ... but they are words that at their very core demand sacrifice. They demand the 'living sacrifice' of the one who not only believes in these words but proclaims them to be truth.
If I am to love the Lord my God with all my soul, I must realise that this will involve spiritual cost. There is a price to pay in giving Him my heart ... I will have to let Him love through me those whom He desires to love (even the seemingly unlovable and ugly) ... even if this at times seems to break my heart. Loving Him with all my heart will demand emotional cost. I have to give Him my will, my right to decide and choose. I must hand over to Him all my relationships ... allowing Him to guide and control, even when I do not understand.
If I am to love the Lord my God with all my mind, ... this will involve intellectual cost. He asks that I give Him my intelligence, all my powers of reasoning. I must trust Him to work through them, even when He may appear to be acting in contradiction to logic or our much prized common sense.
To love the Lord my God with all my strength will demand physical cost. I must allow His Ruach Ha Kodesh to indwell me, to lead and guide me ... through the words that I speak, the thoughts that I think. I must relinquish and hand over every desire and every fear. I must trust Him, whether He chooses sickness or health, strength or weakness ... that the outcome is in His hands and that He IS good and working all things out to and for His purposes.
YHVH graciously and tenderly 'invites' each one of us to trust Him enough to allow Him to work the desire to lay down all for Him into our hearts ... He will do the stripping away and sandpapering. He will snap off the thorns of hidden jealousies and unknown pride. He will do the stripping of the bark which is finally death to self ... self defence ... self pity ... self justification ... self sufficiency.
I guess the only question is ... am I willing to pay the price? Some-days the cost of being a 'living sacrifice' and loving Him in this way seems too high a price to pay. Praise Yah ... these unrefined emotions do not last too long when I am gently reminded of His great love for me ... of the greatest price that He paid for my freedom. He paid the highest price in order to give me life. I am reminded once again that the Shema is an invitation ... an invitation to offer up to Him the response of my heart ... of my whole being in gratitude for what He has done in that one full, perfect and suffcient sacrifice offered up on my behalf.
Once again I ask myself ...in order to keep His commandments and to show Him that I love Him, there is a price that I must pay ... am I willing?
Yes Yes and again Yes!! For it is the only way of expressing my gratitude to YHVH for all that He is, and for all He has done and given for me.
There is no other way to do this...
I must Shema ... 'Hear and Obey'.
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