Yesterday I shared that the Ten Commandments are God’s instructions on how to love. When Jesus was asked what commandment was most important, He gave a beautiful little summary of God’s Law in Matthew 22.

Matthew 22:37-39 ³⁷ ”‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

The Commandments all boil down to this: Loving God above everything else, and loving your fellow man. Paul put it even more succinctly in his letter to the church of Rome:

Romans 13:10   Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

That is what God’s commandments are all about: Love. If you love God above everything else, you keep all the commandments God has given. That sounds pretty good. On the other hand, if you slip up just the least bit, you have not kept any of the commandments. That is the message we read in James:

James 2:10  For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.

And Scripture makes it very clear that those who do not keep God’s Law deserve punishment, severe punishment. Adam and Even knew that eating of the forbidden fruit would bring death, and it is no different for you. Because of sin, that is what you have earned.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death

Thinking about God’s Laws, your lack of obedience, and what He tells you in His Word can leave you feeling depressed. You realize that you are inadequate. You have not done what God requires. He tells you to love, and you have not done it, at least not the way he tells you to. When you understand how serious this is (the wages of sin is death), when the gravity of your situation hits you, it hurts. You want to do what God demands. Your spirit is willing but your flesh is weak.  What can you do?

The God who is LOVE had a plan, a plan the world sees as “foolish.” God would make His love incarnate. He would become one of us in order to take our disobedience on Himself and pay the price our sins demand. He would do this to restore us to God’s favor. Christ Jesus did all that for you by loving you and living a perfect life for you. He loved you and rose from the dead for you. His love has given you pardon and peace with God, in spite of what is going on in the world. He has brought you forgiveness and life and salvation. That passage I read earlier from Romans 6 – I only read part of it. Listen to the whole verse:

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That is what God’s love is. Knowing what He has given us in Jesus, we strive to live according to that “to do” list He has given us. It is our response to what He has already done for us in Jesus. Or, as John put it:

1 John 4:19  We love because He first loved us.