One Commandment

ONE COMMANDMENT:  Commandments are like moral absolutes.  I suggest that logically there should be one dominating commandment that follows directly from the one moral absolute.  It seems that the Scripture teaches this also. While there are many things we are commanded to do, in reality there is one commandment with a host of footnotes.  The one commandment from which all others derive is that we are to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, minds, bodies and souls.  The second command is an extension of the first.  I show love to God by loving other people, whom He created. All other commandments hang on the great commandment like Christmas ornaments on a Christmas tree.  All other commands are instructions on how to love God and other people.  (Mat 22:37-40)

            Before we start throwing out other instructions/commandments as optional or subject to our understanding, we need to remember that all these instructions were given by the God who knows all things, understands all things, created all things and loves all things.  I know how to love God because He told me how.  If I throw out the “footnotes” I show that I think I know better than God how one loves God and loves other people whom He designed.  This is what 1 John 2:4-10 says.  I clearly do not know or love God if I think I know better than He how one loves God and other people.

I know what is loving because He told me what is loving.  It is not what I feel is loving but what He knows to be loving.   For example, I may think that I am being loving by condoning/accepting extra-marital sex.  In reality this is not a loving pursuit.  It encourages others to violate the Character of God and his designs and because of that it has tragic consequences.

Sin is not about violating a command. Sin is about falling short of God’s glory—not having His character.  It is about heart attitudes.  God is far more interested in why we do what we do than what we do. Was the first sin eating the apple or the heart attitude that preceded the eating of the apple?  Actions are always a result of heart attitudes—character. (Mark 7:14ff –It is not what enters a man but what comes out from within that defiles him. This included eating the apple).

We are told that God looks upon the heart—what were we thinking when we did what we did.  He looks on our hearts with perfect understanding and knowledge.  If we loved God with all our hearts, minds, body and soul, we would do what he would do.  The only limiting factor to perfect activity would be our lack of knowledge of His character.  In the end the one commandment is to follow the one moral absolute. We are to love the character of God to such an extent that we live it out in our relationships and actions.