His resurrection is not good unless He is good and unless the Father is good. It is the goodness and love of God that make Jesus’ teachings rise above all else. It would be a good devotional just to reflect on the chief end of people by meditating on the scriptures presented below. Many things glorify God but the highest way is to love. In a famous statement The Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Confession teaches that “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” If Jesus said loving God and others are the greatest commandments then perhaps the highest “chief end of man” is to love God and others. THE COMMUNITY OF LOVE WITH GOD AND HIS FOLLOWERS All our evangelism and study and worship and meetings are supposed to lead to the community of love with God and His followers. All the other good things such as preaching, study of scripture, worship, missions, etc., follow after.Īll Christian doctrine serves to establish love and relationship as the center of reality and existence. The Apostle John sums up Jesus’ commandments by saying: “And this is His commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.” (I John 3:23, NLT) Thus, when it comes to our actions, loving one another is the highest priority. But the greatest of these is love” I Corinthians 13:13 (NIV). At the end he states: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. People are easily impressed by the supernatural – as we should be, but loving fellow believers is even more important and more valuable to God. In this passage Paul is again teaching the believers how to treat each other and making it clear that love is superior to supernatural powers and gifts. Paul emphasizes brotherly love again in I Corinthians 13, the famous passage on love. Nothing comes before this, except our love for God – which is demonstrated by loving fellow believers. This emphasizes how important it is for believers to love one another. He surprisingly omitted the first “greatest commandment” Jesus stated and just stated the second. He wasn’t referring to the old covenant but rather was teaching the believers how to treat each other. Then He said that a second similar commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself (Love, or friendship, can be defined as a commitment to the well-being of another, often accompanied with affection.).Ī few years later the Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the church in Galatia and stated: “For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (NLT) Gal 5:14. Jesus summed this up in Matthew 22:37 by saying that the greatest commandment was to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. He wants to be our Father, our teacher, our lover, and our friend. So every element of the gospel is best understood in the context of His desire to be in a strong and loving relationship with us and for us to live in community with fellow believers. Rather, His teachings flow from God’s love, and the gospel is the epitome of His love. His teachings are not just a list of random commands God gave to us to see if we would be obedient. Jesus’ teachings all flow from God’s true and good nature. At the root, these are all different ways of saying that the Christian life is centered on one thing: love. Our purpose is to live a “Kingdom of God” life. Our goal is to become a perfect community of believers. The goal or purpose of the Christian life can be stated several different ways. Fortunately, by reading the great Christian spiritual life teachers of the past I discovered in scripture God’s desire for the Christian life. When I was finishing seminary I was frustrated because I still didn’t know what the real purpose of the Christian life was other than to become like Christ, which seemed vague.
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