I believe Jesus is the Son of God, that He died in my place to rectify me with God, and that He rose again for me to live with Him. I have been baptized and have accepted the gift of the Holy Spirit. I am fully convinced He is the way, the truth, and the life that He is the only way to the Father, and I want to follow. Now what? How do I follow? Where do I start?
To answer these questions, we will look to the word that gives life and is truth: God’s word. The words that created all things and which will never pass away. There are places where the bible summarizes itself. One of these places is in 1 Corinthians 13:13, “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” You honestly could start your journey here, and I did just that. However, this verse begs the question: love who? Oh, I know this one; Jesus! That is what people say about being a Christian; love Jesus. So, how do I love Jesus? If only Jesus told us how to love Him. That would make things so much easier. Well, it’s a good thing He helps us with that. “If you love me, keep my commands” (John 14:15). Okay, so we show our love to Jesus by doing what He says? Makes sense. But wait, what does He command? It gets confusing pretty quickly; pray, forgive, repent, tithe, serve, speak boldly, preach the gospel, go to church, read the bible, find a study, read a devotional. It’s too much to keep track of and becomes burdensome quickly. Is there a summary I can start with? Some way to understand what Jesus’s commands are? This is where Jesus offers some help. In Mark 12:30-31, He shares both a summary and the greatest command. “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: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” It sounds cliche to point back to the greatest command, however, this is a wonderful thing to have. In two verses we have all the commands to follow. This is wonderfully simple. The difficulty comes in application.
See, the greatest command is split into two parts: part a and part b. While they are both the greatest command, there is a first and second because order matters. The first part is where we start; learning how to love God, and with what. This is not a trivial thing. Depending on how we grew up, what we were taught, or what we have experienced, we have distorted ideas about what love is and how it works. On top of that, God is invisible, intangible, and speaks softly. How do you love when you don’t know what love truly is, you can barely hear, and you can’t touch or even see him who you want to love? At this point, it is better to admit defeat than to try and figure it out for ourselves. Well, less admitting defeat to God and more admitting to ourselves that we couldn’t do it in the first place. God, in knowing all things, already knew and planned for this. For starters, He loved us first (1 John 4:19). Secondly, He gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit, who intercedes on our behalf (Romans 8:26-27). And thirdly He works all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). This relieves a lot of anxiety about messing up and not loving correctly because He already loves us, is teaching us how to love Him, and guarantees the results will be good. Ultimately following Jesus is an invitation to truly know the Father, God of all things, which is both intellectual and experiential.
The invitation is for God to be real to you, personally and individually. This requires us to learn and experience new things that only can be done with God’s help, otherwise, we would only be learning about ourselves. In order to love God, we must do things that require God’s help. That way we continue to experience and understand the true depth of God’s love and character. We must live a life that is beyond our ability to do on our own. Fortunately, we are weak, and this is a wonderful blessing because it is in our weakness where we can experience God’s immeasurable strength. When it comes to loving God, we need all the help we can get. This is why asking God to teach you through the Holy Spirit is a healthy thing to do because it opens the door to an authentic relationship and a true love for God. With the Holy Spirit’s help, there are two main ways to love God. First, learning about Him, learning His character, what He has done, what He has said, and how He reacts. Learning about God really opens the door to the next part. Second, experiencing Him; to live with Him, allowing Him to work in our lives, and walking through struggles with Him. This mainly comes from doing what He says and experiencing what happens. Taking what God says and commands and trying them out for ourselves. As Jesus says, “everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock”(Matthew 7:24). That phrase, into practice, is perfect for what we are being told to do. We are not asked to perform, but to practice Jesus’s commands. The focus is not on the outcome but the ideas of trying for yourself, failing or succeeding, and learning. The whole goal of practice is to learn how to do something new and to become progressively better. This changes the perspective on failure. Instead of failure meaning you are disqualified, failure is expected and, in a sense, required to learn the most. Trying to practice Jesus’s commands also deepens our reliance on and relationship with Him; since we can only do what He says with His help and by his teaching.
In short, our relationship with God is built on loving God with everything, first. We show our love by learning who God is and what He commands and by practicing what He says while constantly being dependent on His help and guidance. We show our love for God secondly by loving others as we love ourselves, treating others as we want to be treated.
Simply Difficult 