Reflection

Deep into the Greatest Commandment

A Topic in Christian Living and Reflection

Connecting and getting to know God, our Father, gives such a great amount of joy in a daily Christian life. Serving Him rewards us with comfort and great desire for Him. Although, we can point out so many things about glorifying Him, even God says it’s not enough. One might point to a fact that human beings cannot glorify God like Jesus can, but the real argument I want to clear up on is, “If serving, glorifying, praising, worshipping God is not enough, what must we also do while we live in flesh?”

If we have a relationship with God, should we also have a relationship with others as well?

The answer is yes, and I have several passages from the Word of God we can all look to.

One of the Pharisees in his time asked our Lord a question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” (Matthew 22:36)

Jesus replied with three answers in Matthew 22:37-40.

1)    Love the Lord with all of your heart, your soul, and your mind. (37)

2)    Love your neighbor as much as yourself. (39)

3)    All the Law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.

Why did Jesus say these things, first of all?

From what I was taught from several ministries, the Pharisees, Jewish leaders, and the people around Jesus, first of all, did not have an authentic relationship with God.

Jesus called God his Father. In John 5:16-18 shows that the Jewish leaders wanted to kill Jesus for calling God his very own father because he was making himself equal with God. The case was actually about showing the position they were in. The people only called God THE Father, instead of calling God THEIR Father. Jesus previously spoke to a Samaritan woman about true worshippers of God. True worshippers of God worship in Spirit and in truth. (John 4:21-24)

This supports answer one from the main question. We must worship God with Spirit and in truth. The Spirit is our heart, and our soul. The truth is our mind that aligns with the Word of God.

Going back into John 5, there was a pool called Bethesda where so many of the sick and disabled lay. There was one specific man who has been disabled for 38 years. He was then cured by Jesus and was told to pick up his mat and walk. This was happening on a Sabbath, and the Jewish leaders saw this man carrying his mat. I’m not sure if they knew before that he was disabled, but the first thing that caught them is his mat instead of his past condition. Before the healing occurred, the man said this after Jesus asked him if he wanted to get well.

“I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” (John 5:7)

This caught my attention about the relationships that people were having with others around that time. Before I get into this part, carrying your mat on a Sabbath day was viewed as working on the Lord’s Day, referencing back to the 4th Commandment of His Law to only rest on the Sabbath. Carrying your mat was actually a man made Jewish Law that has nothing to do with work. Jesus telling the paralytic to carry his mat and walk during a Sabbath Day was done intentionally to get their attention so he can tell the leaders of his relationship with God by the way. John 5:41 and 43 is remarkable:

1)    I do not accept glory from human beings.

2)    I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him.

This supports answer two of my main question. We are like them, and maybe usually, we pick and choose others, tending to leave others behind who don’t seem ‘worthy’. Jesus commanded to love others as much as we love ourselves, not love only the ones we are acceptable in society.

When Jesus said that the Law and the prophets hold on to these two commandments, he was stating it as a fact, not an suggestion, opinion, or interpretation. I will be using Hosea as an example: Hosea is a prophet who was commanded by God to love his unfaithful wife Gomer. Unfaithful as in she was a prostitute. God was giving one of the greatest examples about what true love is through Hosea’s harsh life. The gist of the Prophet Hosea is found in chapter 3 verse 1.

“Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes,” the Lord said to Hosea.

This passage shows that prophet Hosea was holding on to God, and also to Gomer. He loved God with all of his heart, his soul, and his mind. He loved Gomer, even though she was not like Hosea, or anybody that Hosea would find acceptable, tolerable, etc. He held on to these two commandments, thus proving Jesus right. This passage really hit me so much, and because of Hosea’s gospel, I was saved through those words, seeing God’s love for me, for you, and for all of us. This supports not just answer three, but all 3 answers of the main question, and hits it home.

Now, that we understand that, how about we look into our relationship with God, and many others in our life? We are going to emphasize the relationships with others more actually. The reason is that our relationships with others can be extremely difficult for all of us, and I’m not just talking about our relationships with our family, or our own friends. I want to use the teaching that Jesus gave to the Samaritan woman which is “Spirit and in truth.” I learned this great lesson from a great teacher by differentiating these two things.

1)    Worshipping God only in Spirit is considered idolatry. (Samaritan example)

2)    Worshipping God only in truth is considered hypocrisy. (Pharisee example)

3)    Worshipping God in Spirit and in truth is a must. (John 4:24)

I wanted to go deeper with that example, except that we will not worship others because it is not good to do so anyway. This is an amazing discovery by going deeper into this teaching of Jesus. I realized that by taking this lesson from our Lord, I wondered about my relationship with others recently.

I loved my friends and family without having to know much about them. I use to defend them, care for them, and even give to them by only by a little knowledge of their life. I was giving them praise, blindly because they just seemed to be so good in life. Wouldn’t that be considered idolizing your own friends? Did I just make them into heroes, or even gods?

I had friends who I knew most of their life. Some may consider them that I was their best friend because I knew so much about them. Yet, even though, with all the knowledge I have about them, I also had no compassion towards them, and still, they were considered my ‘friends’. Didn’t I just tell you that I was being hypocritical? Was I lying to them the whole time?

Without those two things, our relationships with others are futile because it shows that we are not truly reflecting in God’s standards for our daily living, and also, not following the greatest commandment given to us.

Obsession vs. Reflection

A Topic in Love and Relationships

 

Remember the first time you came across a person and develop sudden interests in them? You probably became friends after or it took some time to get to that point. Ever thought of them so much that you couldn’t stop your heart from beating too fast, or kept your eyes away from them? Somehow, your friends have come to an interest about your life in love. Some may support it; others could not. Did you come across a comment that told you were obsessed? How about such phrases from others? For example: “You’re a creep!” but inside, you either knew that for a fact, or it was something you knew that most people would never understand. The world we live in today easily mistakes those feelings and thoughts for obsession.

Most people who use the word “obsessed” do not truly know what the word exactly means. In the dictionary, the meaning tells that obsession is domination of the person’s thoughts through persistence in idea, images, etc. That’s the correct term in a general sense, but what are the things from obsession we can distinguish by using the term in dating and relationships? Let’s slowly brainstorm the things we came across and learned. Characteristics of obsession can be the person’s mind is constantly thinking of that other person. Now, it’s okay to think about that person, but to be constantly thinking of that person in a twenty-four hour day and more than one-fourths of it have been spent on that thought can lead to such an area that can be very dangerous to health, and more importantly, faith. Such strong thoughts can lead to areas we should not tread on. It can lead to praising the thought, and can lead to praising the person, or worshipping. That would be called idolization, which is much worse than obsession.

Reflection is a term that most people ignore. Reflection is not in a sense where you look in the mirror and you see yourself. This is more of a spiritual way of using reflection in this discussion, especially in dating and relationships. Reflection is mirroring the characteristics of a certain object, or abstract images. In this sense, the reflection I want to go over is reflecting upon the characteristics of Christ.

What does Christ have that we really want to mirror? Philippians 2:1-8 has a great list of examples of who Christ is. Starting from verse 5, Paul, the author of Philippians, tells us a great command to be like our Lord and Savior before giving us his beautiful attributes.

1)    Christ did not make himself equal to his Father, even though he is God as well.

2)     He also took the nature of a servant instead of being a king on earth to be praised highly.

3)    He was also obedient to death, carrying out the will of God, and still, had no desire on earth to be glorified like God, the Father.

 

If we go back to verse 1, Paul tells us a loving command to become sensitive, compassionate, being like-minded, being one in Spirit and of one mind with our friends, family, and even with the one we care for and love. Reflect on these traits. Meditate on these verses.

Personally, there’s a special person in my life who I am not conversing with at the moment because of some troubles we had together, but I was hurt when we had to be away from each other. It’s been more than a month and I wanted to move on but God confronted me that I have been reflecting on wrong characteristics, such as moving on too quickly. If I had done so, I would’ve done the opposite that Christ has done for us. I would be not sensitive to others, not concerned, uncompassionate, and being separate from God. Because of that conviction, I will reflect on those characteristics towards her. At the same time, you could also be walking into an area where you can have thoughts of the other, even in worries, we can stumble by being too thoughtful of the other person, or dwelling in the past and not having faith in Christ that he will lift these burdens away from us. We will be making our thoughts direct our lives when it should be God, our loving Father, to pull us out of the troubles we have caused. I began to think about what was wrong in my friendship with her and I realized that I was obsessed with the thought of her, filling the spot of being my spouse so that I can no longer feel lonely. I do wish that I could go back and fix that mistake, and I do know that most people really do as well, but without those convictions, I wouldn’t see my need to be just like Christ. So I learned to accept the fact that she and I are not communing because my character will not reflect Jesus, but reflect on wickedness and selfishness. I am glad that God has given me chances everyday to turn away from such things and instead, striving towards to be more like Christ in such a loving way.

Whenever you feel discouraged about the other person on how they think of you, ask yourself this question: Are you reflecting on the traits of Christ? Or are you being obsessive of the thoughts you create in your life about that person?

The best answer we all hope for is the person is seeing Christ is the center of your life, and they want to grow in the relationship with Christ as well.

If that answer is that you are not reflecting on those traits, but the other is willing to be interested in Christ, then ask yourself if it is right to pursue this person?

The worst answer we would have is the person is seeing Christ in you, and wants you to not love him.

What about the person who has Christ but they aren’t interested in you? Pray for wisdom, and encouragement in an area you have in need of help in.

Remember: We’re still in human flesh, and we won’t achieve all of Christ’s characteristics but striving for his perfection to govern our lives is what He most desires.

 

 

A Christian Reflection On Death

As I get older, from time to time I find myself reflecting upon death and asking myself why I fear it (and if I should fear it). Though it sounds depressing, I think it’s good to really reflect on our own mortality. I know very well how difficult this can be. Like a gag reflex, whenever we begin thinking about death (especially our own), we immediately push it out of mind. Try sitting down and really reflecting on your own death. I don’t know about you, but for me I don’t really like to think about it.

Before I proceed with my reflections, I think it’s good to bring up the common criticism leveled against Christians that Christianity (or religion) is just an emotional crutch in coping with death, and therefore it’s false. Yes, these are the types of arguments that I see all the time. Some others are “You’re just a Christian because you’re scared of death and it gives you comfort” and “Christianity amounts to nothing but a crutch for getting through life”. Most of the time, I ignore people that tell me this because these objections, if we can even call it that, are incredibly shallow, and most of the time they’re used to somehow disprove Christianity and the faith of the believer. When used in this way, they’re all non-sequiturs. Are there Christians who believe because they fear death? Yes. Have some believers come to faith because of their fear of death? Yes. So, for some it is a sort of emotional crutch. But that does nothing to discredit the truth and validity of Christianity or the object of the persons faith. I have my own reasons for being a Christian, but one of them is certainly not because Christianity gives me the emotional comfort to face death (and it does give me the comfort and hope to face it).

I hear these objections a lot, even by educated atheists and it really gets annoying after a while. I’ve basically conceded that some Christians do use Christianity as some emotional crutch. Moreover, is that some sort of bad thing? Is it bad for one to use Christianity to get through this life? Does that somehow discredit Christianity? This objection is just so ridiculous and has so many holes in it that I’m astounded that I still hear it.

With that out of the way, I’d like to now move on to my thoughts on death and how my faith comes into play. Being 20 years old can scare me at times. “Crap,” I think to myself, “I’m 20 years old already, and assuming I live to a ripe, good age of 70, that means I’m about 1/3 of the way.” Yep. That’s how I think sometimes! No doubt I try to enjoy my youth, but I do tend to think of my own inevitable fate. I think it’s a good thing to think about death because it’s extremely sobering and humbling. This is one of those things that smacks you in the face and reminds you of your place in this universe. When this happens, we take stock of our priorities in life and we begin to really enjoy and take seriously the life we’ve been given. We lower our arrogance and we remind ourselves that we are mortal beings whose existence is contingent.

Honestly, my greatest fear about death is its mystery. I’m reminded of the 3rd Narnia movie (I went with some friends to see it even though I wasn’t crazy about the Narnia movies) when Lucy, Edmund, Caspian and Reepicheep meet Aslan and come before a ginormous standing wave. Aslan tells them that if they cross through the wave and go into his land, they cannot come back. I’m not sure of this was a symbol of heaven (probably is) but that’s what I interpreted this scene as. Here they had to take the step of faith and go through the wave. Aslan said they had to go through it alone but he would meet them on the other side–just like what happens in death. It’s mysterious, and we must each face it alone.

This leads to my next greatest fear and that’s the fact that I must be separated from all my loved ones. I think this one probably hurts me just as much as the first. To walk through death alone and be separated from the relationships and people that have helped me along the way is a scary thought. I remember sitting in church with Tim LaHaye as a speaker and he said something along the lines of “You can measure the faith of anyone by seeing what his attitude towards death is.” I think there’s some truth to that. I think my fears stem from a weak or lack of faith in the promise that Christ gave us. No doubt I trust Him with my life, but sometimes these fears grip me and I have to remind myself of Christ’s promise and that I will see my loved ones again.

When I am reminded of these promises, death truly loses its sting and I am comforted in knowing that Christ died and defeated death, and through Him I can defeat death as well. But despite this comfort, I eagerly and anxiously wait for that day to approach. Eager to see my King and anxious because, well, it’s death I’m facing here. It’s sort of like that feeling you get when you have your last final exam for a class that you utterly hate and just want to be over. You know after that big exam you have the freedom of vacation, but you must take the dreadful thing first. This is exactly how I feel about death.

“When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?” -1 Corinthians 15:54-55

 

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