“Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”” – Mark 12:29-31

We need these truths today and every day. Read them and repeat them often. The Lord is one, undivided, and almighty. Love Him with every part of your being. Love every neighbor as yourself.

We need these truths in a year in which politics threaten to divide us from our neighbors: family members, church members, and community members. As the people of God, never let earthly politics rip apart the heart of love and care we are commanded to show everyone. Rather than lamenting, “I don’t understand how X could vote for Y”, commit to love your neighbor as yourself. Period.

We need these truths in a year in which a new virus is likely to stoke fear, anxiety, selfishness, panic, and suffering. The Lord is one, He is all-powerful, He is in control of this world. Turn your fears over to Him in prayer. Love Him with every bit of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Let your love for Him crowd out your fear. Then love your neighbor in need as yourself.

“And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.” – Mark 12:26-27

For all who believe there is nothing after this life, I have good news and bad news: you are quite wrong! God has revealed from the earliest pages of Scripture that though our earthly lives end, we are eternal beings with billions and trillions of years ahead of us. He revealed this truth with increasing clarity as history advanced, making it utterly clear by the death and resurrection of Jesus, which gave proof of all He taught about heaven, hell, eternity, and judgment.

That brings us back to the good news/bad news part. God is perfect. Heaven is perfect. We aren’t perfect, no matter how hard we try to be. If we went to heaven it would no longer perfect. So how can we possibly get into heaven??? We can’t on our own! On our own, the eternity we face is one of utter separation from God.

The good news is that Jesus not only proclaimed the truth of heaven, He opened heaven’s door for us. By His perfect life, sacrificial death and bodily resurrection, He made it possible for everyone who believes in Him to be made righteous through faith. This is a gift of utterly undeserved grace given by God through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. By this gift, God credits the perfect righteousness of Christ to our account because we are united with Christ by faith. Christ lives within us and because He does, we will spend eternity with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!

“And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting, and when they came out they blessed the people, and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people.” – Leviticus 9:23

What an incredible moment! After all the construction and preparation, after the commitment and ordination of Aaron and his sons to the priesthood, and after the sacrifices made to atone for the sin of the people and of the priests, everyone got to see the glory of the Lord for themselves!

We really can’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like: to experience the outshining radiance of all the power, beauty, strength, wisdom, knowledge, goodness, holiness, righteousness, justice, mercy, kindness, and grace of God. Words fail and so do imaginations. We certainly could (and should) wish to have such an experience of God’s presence.

And we will! For all who are in Christ, He has made atonement for our sins. By the grace and mercy of God, all who believe in Jesus will one day live in the presence of the glory of God forever in the new heaven and new earth. What was a momentary experience for Israel so long ago is the forever future of all who follow Jesus. We have something wonderful to look forward to!

“Then he shall offer the second for a burnt offering according to the rule. And the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin that he has committed, and he shall be forgiven.” – Leviticus 5:10

The overwhelming message of the book of Leviticus is that forgiveness of sin comes at a terrible price. God is pure, perfect, holy, and righteous. He is all good and in Him is no shadow of darkness, evil, or sin. Thus when we sin – and we all do – we create a separation between us and Him bigger than the Grand Canyon!

The only way to remove that sin and close that separation is for something innocent to die. It sounds horrible to our modern sensibilities, but that’s because we don’t appreciate how horrible our sin is, whether we think it’s a “big” sin or a “little” sin. Sin is sin and “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23) – either for ourselves or for something innocent that atones for our sin.

The ancient system of sacrifice with all its blood and gore was intended to teach us that single lesson. That system could never truly save anyone in itself because after the sacrifice people just sinned again. The system existed to point us to an infinitely greater sacrifice that could cover all our sin, past, present, and future.

That sacrifice was made by the eternal, holy, righteous, perfect Son of God, Jesus Christ. He lived the life free of sin that we can’t and He died as an atoning sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sins. By His death and resurrection, all who put their faith in Him receive forgiveness and new birth into eternal life.

“He Himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed.” – 1 Peter 2:24

“The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?”
– Psalm 27:1

We live in an anxious age. Rising numbers of people report symptoms of anxiety. We’re anxious about the past, present, and future. We’re anxious about new diseases, old hurts, environmental problems, politics, finances, terrorism, war, crime, and the list goes on and on. For people who don’t know God, that makes sense, there is truly much to be worried about.

For the people of God, those who have committed their lives to following Jesus, the Bible is clear – God doesn’t want us to be anxious and afraid. Will bad things happen in our lives? Absolutely, we live in a fallen world! There will continue to be bad things in this world and in our lives until Christ returns to make all things new. But we don’t have to be anxious about them or live in fear. Jesus came so that we would have life and have it abundantly, not anxiously!

When we are in Christ, He is in us. God is with us in all circumstances. He is with us in the storms and pain we suffer. He is with us when no one else is. He will strengthen us and guide us through rough waters. Philippians 4:6-7 teaches that as we grow in our prayer life – in our faithful commitment to God of EVERYTHING that weighs on our hearts, God gives us peace and comfort that makes no sense to the world, but makes complete sense to those who are in Christ!