“And the scribe said to him, ‘You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.’” – Mark 12:32-33

Of course Jesus is right! However, this unnamed scribe makes a vital point that drives home the truth of what Jesus just said. All the rule-following, self-discipline, religious practice, and appearances of holiness are worth nothing if we aren’t filled with, and consumed by, absolute love for God and love for others as we love ourselves!

In summarizing all of the Old Testament Law, Jesus makes clear that we need to be full of all-encompassing love for God. We need to love Him with every part of our being – all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Our brains, our hearts, our bodies must be fully devoted to love and worship of God. Knowledge, emotion, spirit, body – all devoted ceaselessly to loving God. Our love for God can’t just live in a single compartment of our lives (the church part), it must define our family life, work life, educational life, social life, and community life.

Our love for our neighbor must never be transactional or based on his or her worthiness of love. It can’t be based on how similar they are to us or whether they agree with us on matters of religion or politics. Our love for our neighbors must be endless, practical, and sacrificial – just as we love ourselves.

These two great loves (God and neighbor) are vastly more important to God than any of the outward practices of our faith. Do you live these loves every day and with greater zeal than you live pretty much anything else?

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” – 2 Corinthians 8:9

Think about it!!! Jesus, Who was present at Creation and through Whom all things were made, stepped out of the glory of the heavenly throne room into our messed up, ugly, hate-filled, broken world. Jesus set aside His exalted heavenly status to become an infant in Bethlehem. He left the glory and riches of heaven for the poverty of life on Earth. Jesus left perfection to experience hunger, thirst, heat, cold, life, death, love, betrayal, and pain firsthand. He did that for YOU!!!

Jesus exchanged His throne for a cross, so that by His sacrificial death and resurrection you could be rescued from the squalor of sin, spiritual poverty, separation from God, and inevitable damnation. Jesus become poor so that everyone who believes in Him could be exalted as beloved children of God, given an eternal inheritance, and raised above the angels we will one day judge. He did that for YOU!!!

All this was an act of extraordinary grace. Grace is a gift, something that isn’t earned or deserved. Jesus owed you nothing. You didn’t deserve to be raised out of our spiritual poverty. Your best efforts earned no favor in the eyes of a perfect and holy God. But Christ’s did. He gave Himself to the poverty of humanity to redeem you from your poverty. Not because of anything you’ve done to deserve it, but because He’s gracious, loving, and merciful. He did that for YOU!!! Praise our gracious Lord Jesus Christ!

“Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.” – 2 Corinthians 7:1

As we stand in light of the glorious resurrection we celebrated yesterday, our minds should consider the practical question of how we should live in light of this wondrous truth and the promises we enjoy in Christ. As new creations in Christ, guaranteed eternal life, adopted by God, and having the Holy Spirit within us, how should our everyday life be different? In every way!

Our new life in Christ should be characterized by a determined effort to change from whatever we once were. Specifically, we should be making an ongoing, Spirit-empowered effort to live a holy life in imitation of Jesus and pleasing to God. In light of the cross and the resurrection, we must reject any sinfulness, any defilement, any immorality, and any dishonesty that lives within us. We must go to battle with the “little” sins and the “big” sins that attract our hearts and minds. We must crucify these sins (even that ones that “don’t hurt anyone”) for they’re all a rejection of God that make a mockery of Christ’s saving work.

We should live in awe and respect of the gracious God Who saved us by His own initiative in sending Jesus into this world to die for us. We should pursue the holiness of Jesus who walks with us every day. We must reject even those sins that the world says are “OK” because God despises them. This clean-up effort in our lives will never save us, but is the appropriate and necessary response to having been saved already as a gift of God’s grace.

“And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God!’” – Mark 15:37-39

Today is Good Friday. On this day, we remember the terrible suffering and death of Jesus, the Son of God, on the cross. There on the cross, Jesus suffered not only physically but spiritually. As He was nailed there, bleeding and gasping for breath, Jesus carried all our sins upon Himself. As His strength faded under darkened skies, Jesus personally suffered all of God’s righteous wrath for those sins.

However, with His death, we already see the promise of our hope! As Jesus died, the enormous heavy curtain that separated the Most Holy Place in the Temple from the Holy Place suddenly ripped in two. This curtain separated all of us from God’s holy presence. With Christ’s death, there was no longer a heavy curtain of separation. With Christ’s death, the presence of God can be experienced not just by a High Priest once a year, but by everyone who believes in Jesus every day.

When the Son of God died on Good Friday, He made it possible for everyone who believes in Him to be reconciled to God. Because of the cross, we can enjoy God as our Father and our friend. Because of the cross, we can enjoy eternal life from the moment we believe and for the rest of eternity.

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” – 2 Corinthians 3:17

Today is Maundy Thursday, the somber day within Holy Week in which we remember the events of that dark night when Jesus ate His final Passover meal with His disciples, predicted they would abandon Him and pretend they didn’t know Him, prayed in deep distress in the Garden of Gethsemane, and was betrayed by one of His own. This is a dark day, brightened only by our knowledge of why Jesus went through all that – to set us free!

As Jesus explained at the Last Supper, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” Jesus went through the ordeal of the Garden and the cross to establish a new covenant between Holy God and sinful mankind. This new covenant wasn’t based on laws, rules, and heavy discipline. This was a covenant of grace, by which Jesus suffered and we enjoy the benefits, being set free. When we believe and make Jesus Lord of our life, the Spirit of God enters us and we’re set free.

In Christ, we’re set free from guilt. We’re set free from shame. We’re set free from the lasting power of death. We’re set free from loneliness and isolation from God. We’re set free from condemnation. We’re set free from having to make ourselves right, good, or acceptable. Christ makes us right, good, and acceptable to God. In Christ, we’re free to follow God and be transformed into the character of Jesus. We’re free to love and serve the Lord with joy rather than guilt and fear.

Our forgiveness is given as a gift of grace, not something we earn. God’s love for us is given as a gift of grace, not something we earn. God’s Spirit is given as a gift of grace, not something we earn. In this there is true freedom!