Christ-like

"Love summed up everything, the fine print of the Old Covenant Law and the New and better Covenant created in Jesus Christ."

GOD WROTE THE LAW in order to fulfill the Law. All the commandments and ordinances of the Old Covenant Law pointed toward His death and Resurrection, toward what He would accomplish on the earth and in the hearts of men. But what Jesus saw when He walked among men was the failure of the religious leaders to follow the Law they were robed to represent. The failure was not the Law itself, which was righteous, but the sins the Law outlined. The Law was perfect. God Himself wrote it. SO THAT He alone could fulfill it.

It was not that the Law failed men, but that men failed the Law. Jesus’ sacrifice fixed that.

“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” (Romans 8:3)

In Luke 16 and into Luke 17, we read what at first glance appears to be an assortment of Jesus’ thoughts. But note, nothing in the Bible is out of order and placed by happenstance. There is always a reason it is in the order it’s in, and in the gospels, there’s a reason why what is said by one writer is not always fully reported by another. Chapter 16 begins with the proper attitude toward money. This was directed at the Pharisees who, it says in verse 14, were “covetous.” It then says they “derided him” over His instructions. So their attitude over money was wrong and their attitude about His correction of them as well.

Unswayed by their opinions, Jesus replied, “Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts.” However important they thought they looked in their robes when they walked in front of men, in the end, they had not followed the Law which He had come to fulfil. Verse 16 repeats this, “The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached.” There was a change in the air. They looked for a physical kingdom, but He had come with a spiritual one. And that spiritual one took all that the Law represented and brought it into being in the face of Jesus Christ.

All of it was seen in Him. The great plan of God to redeem mankind, the defeat of the enemy which would happen at the cross and Resurrection, the beautiful Holy Spirit coming to live in men upon earth, and the spread of the good news that Jesus’ saves and delivers and heals came into their fulfilment because the Old Covenant Law was written. In a sense, that was God’s outline for the future, and all the prophecies about the Messiah were because of it. The creation of Israel as a nation was so Jesus could be born of Mary in Bethlehem.

He was the perfection of the Law, which the Pharisees pretended to obey. He was living proof that even the smallest letter of the Law did not fail. Here, He used the marriage covenant as an example. Just as the Law didn’t fail men, but men failed the Law, the marriage covenant written in Genesis and outlined in the Law did not fail men, men failed to follow the marriage covenant. The sin of people caused the breaking of the Law; the hard hearts of people caused the breaking of the marriage covenant. The Pharisees hid their sins behind the Law. They used their position in leadership as an excuse for selfishness.

What totally fulfilled the Law was love. Love summed up everything, the fine print of the Old Covenant Law and the New and better Covenant created in Jesus Christ. The nature of God is love and out of the depths of His love is forgiveness. He SO LOVED. The two stories Jesus tells next illustrate this.

In Luke 16:19-31, we have the story of the rich man and Lazarus. I encourage you to read it. But here’s what you should notice. The rich man overlooked the beggar, Lazarus, when he was alive. Then, in the torment of Hades, he calls out to Abraham and asks Abraham to send the beggar, Lazarus, to him to “cool His tongue.” His attitude toward Lazarus hadn’t changed. Even in torment, he thought low of him. Why should Lazarus leave the bosom of Abraham, where he was finally comforted, and enter Hades? This is Abraham’s response. But the rich man, still not seeing his selfishness, then asks Abraham to send Lazarus back to earth. “If he won’t help me, then he should go help my family.”

Abraham’s reply sets the rich man straight, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” Then in verse 31, “If they heard not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.”

And the door snaps shut on the Pharisees’ attitudes. In Jesus, they had the fulfillment of the Law they should have honored. In Him, they saw “love one another.” In Him was forgiveness written on all those pages they read. He pressed this to His disciples at the start of Luke 17. Continuing His teaching, He tells them to forgive someone as many times as they ask for forgiveness. The disciples reply, “Increase our faith.” Jesus follows with another story which seems to be out of place. Except, it isn’t.

He compares the size of faith to a mustard seed and explains what faith of that size could accomplish. You could remove a tree from where it grew and plant it in the sea. Then He says, If a man had a servant who had worked outdoors all day, and the servant came indoors. The man would expect the servant to do his inside job as well. In other words, all of what He’d asked them to do as disciples was not outward. It isn’t always preaching to huge crowds or laying hands on the sick. Sometimes your job is simply to forgive, and you have enough faith for that. It doesn’t require plucking up a tree and replanting it.

Forgiveness is the essence of God’s kingdom, and if we fail in this one point, we fail in the rest of it. A Man did die and rise from the dead in order to give us all we have in His kingdom. His name is Jesus. We are seated in heavenly places with Him. We have all power or authority over all the power of the enemy. We have been commanded to “go ye into all the world” and preach the gospel. God’s love for mankind is the heart of these. It is the foundation on which faith sits, and unless we love each other, then all the faith in the world will fail.

Though we speak with the tongues of men and angels but don’t love others, we are no more than a lot of noise. Though we might prophesy over cities and nations, though we might have deep understanding of God’s mysteries, though we might walk in all faith and cast mountains into the sea, if we don’t have love, we are as nothing. The Pharisees stared the Messiah in the eye, who wrote the Law and would fulfill the Law in their lifetime, they looked love in the eyes and mocked Him.

He died for them anyway then bid for us to follow His example. To not live shallow Christian lives, consumed with our own things, but to see to the joy and encouragement of those around us. To be Christ-like. As gentle and kind as our Savior, as generous as our heavenly Father, as bright and powerful as the Comforter who lives within us.

“Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head, Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end. Love never dies.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8 MSG)


----------
Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com