“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”
(Matthew 4:19)
- Jesus’ command to Peter and Andrew is a command that is repeated to the rest of the disciples and, ultimately, the Church. This is the very first command every Christian hears, because it is the command that- once obeyed- changes everything: Follow Me.
“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
(Mark 1:15)
This command is directly linked to “Follow me.” This is Jesus’ response to our question of “How? How do I follow You?” Simple.
1. First, repent.
-This is an admission of your sins and an acknowledgement of your sinful nature. And this is not a one-time occurrence! I think there are many who are- or have been in the past- trapped by this lie that repentance only needs to happen once… Because it’s linked to the belief that once you’re saved, you’ll never sin again.
-Because of our human nature, we will always be susceptible to sin while here on earth. Though having God on our side makes it easier to fight and resist sin, there will be times that you will give into it again. Repentance is not a one-and-done deal, just like sin isn’t.
-Repentance is the recurring blessing that allows us to come back to God after every single sin we commit and expect to experience His loving forgiveness… Every. Single. Time.
2. Second: believe.
- Like repentance, belief isn’t done once and never again. Believing- truly believing- in Jesus and the faith you have in Him is a conscious choice you need to make every single day- every second, of every minute, of every hour, of every day, of every year- to have.
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
(Mark 12:29-31)
After following, after repenting and believing, there are two commands God gave the Church as a whole. Let’s call them “The Two Greats”. The first Great is what Jesus called the Greatest Commandments. This is actually two, or I would say, three commands in one.
1. First and foremost, love God.
- Love Him with every fiber of your being, because He loves us a hundred times more than that. He is the Ruler of the Universe and our hearts; He could command anything of us, yet all He wants is for His love to be requited with all the love that is humanly possible in us. How… unbelievably incredible is that?
2. Second, love others. There is so much I could say on this, but I would fill up too many pages. So I’ll narrow it down to a couple main points.
A. You aren’t meant to go through life here on earth alone, and neither is anyone else.
- Companionship through friends, family, and the Church- and the companionship you in turn give them- is so important. That’s why the Church exists!
B. Loving others is our calling as believers.
-We are supposed to be living, breathing reflections of God and Jesus on earth, and They were and are the embodiment of Love.
C. In loving others, we show our love for God and experience His love for us.
- God lives in us. The Bible says that God’s Spirit dwells in those who believe in Him, and I already pointed out that we are reflections of Him as believers. When you love other believers and show that love toward them, you are showing your love for God as well.
-Jesus tells us that when we love the “least-of-these”, we are loving Him because He is in them. He speaks of the homeless, the poor… let me say something really fast. Are not the unsaved also homeless? Are not the unsaved poor of spirit as the Bible says it? No one is exempt from this commandment.
So where is the third commandment here? It’s there, but it goes unnoticed in most cases. It’s in the last two words of verse 31: “As yourself.”
- The thing that’s interesting about this is there is not an actual command to love yourself anywhere else in the Bible (these commandments first appear in Deuteronomy and Leviticus), and Jesus doesn’t add one here. He says it like it’s implied. Because it is.
- Look, the Bible tells us to put others above ourselves, God above ourselves, and to put ourselves last. Never does it say to NOT love ourselves. It never tells us to hate ourselves or put ourselves down. It never tells us not to count our own lives as valuable or worthy. In fact, it does the opposite with two simple words: as yourself.
- There needs to be a balance, clearly, between loving yourself too much and loving yourself too little; but there should always be a love for yourself, the life God gave you, and the person He created you to be. This is why the acronym J.O.Y. goes as it does: Jesus and God first, others second, and yourself third.
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
(Matthew 28:19-20)
The Second Great is, of course, the Great Commission.
- This was the last command Jesus gave the Church before He ascended back into Heaven.
- It is a command to repopulate; in the way God commanded Adam and Eve to repopulate and grow the human race, Jesus was commanding the disciples- the first Christians- to repopulate and grow the Church across the world.
Before we move on, I have a question for you. After the Exodus, God gave His people a long list of rules and regulations to obey in order to follow and be with Him. Many of these rules were not followed by the early Christian Church, nor are followed today. Why is that?
YOU ARE READING
Commanded: God's Instructions For Mankind, The Church, and You
Spiritual"I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you." (Psalms 32:8) From the very beginning, God gave us instructions. Instructions for mankind as a race, the Church as His People, and us as indi...
