Out of Love

There is a word that is used in the Bible 150 times; 20 of the times that it is used, it has a word that tags along with it. "Commandment" is a very long word that can mean a lot of things. What is a commandment? For some people it is a law, a line in the sand that you cannot cross. Some people think that it is acts that set apart the good from the bad. It could be the law that the Lord God has given us to live by. To each person this 11 letter word can hold life-motivating power; for some, it is just a line in the sand, the do’s and don’t’s of life.

I was talking to a friend this past week about the laws that God has given us and she had done a study on them. When she looked at the origin of the word "commandment," she found different ways it can be translated. The one that stood out to her the most is the translation of "commandment" into "word". Replace the word "commandment" with "word" in the following verse. John 14:15-- "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." It works, and even more, it makes very good sense.

Most people think of "commandments" as a very imposing set of laws that limit what we are allowed to do with our life. God tells us 20 times that if we love him we will keep his commandments. When you start to think of commandments as words, it makes it a little more personal. The vision and thoughts that I get are a letter that God has written to me telling me about the things that he loves and wants me to do for him. As the youngest of the family, I have been called upon many times to do things for my siblings. In our family we call it a "favor" when someone does something that you want them to, but you really could do it yourself. My sister Sarah would ask me to do favors for her all the time, things like getting her notebook from upstairs or bringing her a glass of water after she went running. As the years have gone by, the favors that my sister asks of me get bigger and bigger. Most of the time I do not mind doing what my sister asks of me, because I love her and I know that it will make her happy if I do them.

God does not need us to keep these commandments/ laws that He has laid down; he is asking us to do it out of love for Him, just because it is the right thing to do. There are times when Sarah would ask me to do a favor for her and I would want something in return for my services; I felt like I had earned something for my hard work. It is the same way with God; sometimes we expect something for our hard work of keeping his commandments. We should have a place in heaven because of all our hard work. God does not need anything from us. He is asking us to love Him, and through that love, to serve Him. It is easy for me to do what is asked of me by the people that I care about and am really close too, so if we were close to God, it should be easy for us to do what He asks of us too.



Project: Do what God and others ask of me, not out of obligation, but out of love.

Follow Up: Joy and happiness are not an easy project to be working on when your sister is getting married. You are always worn-out and are forever short with your family. There are times that I really could have let my tired old self be on display, and there were times that I did do just that. I really had to cry out to God to help me with this one and I was not always able to have victory either, but I must say that it was very good for me and I want to work on it some more.