Honor God's Law

“Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:19 ESV). This command to honor God’s Law is found in a section where Jesus is explaining that he came to fulfill the Law. Stating it's important, Jesus then points out the importance for us to understand the need to obey the commands and emphasize their importance to others. How effective we are in accomplishing this will determine our position in kingdom of heaven.

As I think about this I realize how relaxed we have come in obedience to the word. Our relationship to the word is like our eating habits. We select what we like and eat all we want without too much concern about how it will impact our health. We pick and choose what we like; for example, things like the verse of the day, or a devotional verse, or those that make us feel good, but anything that would cost us something, take our time, or limit us in fulfilling our desires, we tend to shun. As a result, our knowledge and experience with God is limited and we are not growing in spiritual maturity as we should. We need to be more intentional in our faithfulness to the word of God.

Prayer

Father, we need to embrace Galatians 2:20 (ESV): “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” We need to clearly understand that “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21 ESV). Lord, we need to be broken before you so that you can use us to accomplish great things. We also need to understand that a rich meaningful life comes when we pour ourselves out in giving ourselves in serving others, to make room to receive more. If you fill your cup and leave it full it will soon become undesirable, but if we continue to pour out some we make room to receive more, which is new and refreshing.

See "The Commands of Jesus" Index to view other commands.