More musings....

Musings on the Second Commandment
　
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?’ 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 on these two commandments.’” (Matthew 22:36-40)

“The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Galatians 5:14)

There is a great deal of discussion taking place in the greater Body of Christ about the coming together of the prayer movement with the missions movement. Missions groups world-wide are recognizing the necessity of 24/7 intercessory prayer to fuel the missions movement; likewise, prayer movements are recognizing the power that flows forth in evangelism to reach the nations through missions, from the place of prayer. It’s almost like the “aha” moment when one finally finds that missing pair to the glove and the set is complete, ready to be used for the purposes they were created, working together, not separately.

In my recent weeks of musings, I have been grappling with the challenges I have been having and witness others around me facing of living out the second commandment in an atmosphere of 24/7 prayer and worship, where the first commandment is obeyed quite well. The pin finally dropped for me when I pondered the paragraph above about the prayer movement marrying the missions movement! Both Jesus and the Apostle Paul taught and lived out the first two commandments, thus modeling for us today what these should look like.

Every wedding has a bride and a groom. If the groom shows up, but the bride doesn’t, or visa versa, not only will there be no wedding, but also a great deal of pain and confusion will unfold. There’s a reason Jesus “wed” the first and second commandments; one without the other makes the entire Gospel message of Jesus as the bridegroom and the church as the bride incomplete.
Jesus tells a powerful story in Luke 10 of the parable of the good Samaritan. I won’t repeat it here, but rather focus on one aspect I believe the Lord has highlighted for me. Living out the second commandment is costly: it costs time, energy, and money. It is sometimes inconvenient, it may take you “out of the way you were heading”, it demands sacrifice, and it could mean laying down your life. In fact, Jesus boldly declares in John 15:12-13, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

Having served as a missionary overseas for eleven years, I got really focused on the second commandment. Now I live in an atmosphere where the first commandment appears to be primary, and I am left grappling with the experience from one place colliding with the experience of another place. I am also working through having lived in a culture where people and relationships are deeply valued and time spent together, whether relaxing, enjoying a meal, or worshiping and serving the Lord together is part of the ebb and flow; now I am living in a culture where, even in a Christian setting, days are packed, lives are busy and people run at such fast paces that a completely different level and understanding of relationships and loving one’s neighbor has hit me head-on.

Where has all of this pushed me? Into the arms and the heart of Jesus! It’s a glorious place to be, to dwell, to discover my true identity, to pour out my complaints, to rest, to grapple, and to grow, knowing that He is patient and kind and desires to see His two greatest commandments lived out in me and in His people. As this happens, the greatest thing of all, love, will pour forth.

Kevin Prosch is a singer and worshiper and on his album “Palanquin”, he has a song where the following line resides and rocks my world every time I listen to it:

“The mercy you don’t give, is the mercy you don’t get.”

Ouch. Sometimes the truth hurts. I’ve been walking through a season the past couple of years where mercy has not been extended by a few people; this reality brings nothing but pain, and echoes the lesson Jesus taught in Luke 10. The late Derek Loux in one of his teachings biblically defined mercy as:

To remove the consequences of somebody’s stupidity.

I believe living out the second commandment is more about mercy than we realize. Of course I want people to show me mercy, but if I am loving my neighbor as myself, then I have to extend that same mercy to my neighbor. The measure by which each of us is able to receive God’s mercy is the degree to which we will be able to love.

I recently attended a seminar in which the speaker, Tina Burch, spoke on the topic of forgiveness. At the end, she shared a personal testimony:

“I had a season when I was trying to be so consecrated to God that I would see someone who was battling something and I would distance myself from them because I thought, ‘I don’t want them to “infect” me and keep me from God.’ I saw this was completely backwards---we are called to enter in to God’s work in other people’s lives. We don’t need to ‘fear’ that they will somehow pull us away from our consecration to God.”

At a Sunday morning service at Forerunner Christian Fellowship, Steve Venable challenged us with this thought:

“What would it look like for Jesus to be supreme and exalted in EVERYTHING?”

What would it look like for Jesus to be supreme and exalted in the Body of Christ living out the second commandment? We get one glimpse in John 17:20-26, and especially in verse 23 where Jesus says in His prayer to the Father:

“I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” Again, in John 13:34-35 we read the words of Jesus:

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Loving one’s neighbor includes loving one another, and Jesus is clear that the world will know we are His disciples by the way we love one another. It’s not surprising to me today, given the challenges of this command, to see that people are not flocking to Jesus, because we do not always love our brothers and sisters in Christ the way Jesus wants us to love.

I find it interesting that Jesus says this is a new command, given the fact that the second commandment was already in place. My opinion is that He was, as He loved to do, elevating the command to love our neighbor to a level that we could not do without Him literally living in us and loving through us. Love is easy when it is not costly or when it meets our needs or desires. True love cost Jesus everything; even His very life.

I write all of this with great godly fear and trepidation because I know that words have power and that God typically tests me to see if I really live what I say I believe. In the end, I agree with this:

Love is to be the defining quality of the church.

Finally, Stephen Roach in his album Closer to the Burning captures the essence of this wedding of the two greatest commandments:

“We’re gonna reach into Your heart oh God, we’re gonna reach out to the streets of men.”

Clearly, the first and second commandments go together; clearly, the Kingdom of God is going to advance with power as the prayer and missions movements are wed. We cannot do one while neglecting the other; we cannot love God and neglect loving our neighbor, and the Scriptures give us a very clear road map as to what these look like. Jesus, help us to lay down our lives for our neighbor, whether a brother or sister in Christ, or the neighbor who still needs to be introduced to You, just the way You laid down your life for each of us. Let Your cry in the Garden of Gethsemane be our cry when it comes to living out the second commandment: Not my will, but Your will be done.