O, How Man Goes Wrong: Let Me Count the Ways!

I often think about the two greatest commandments in the law: love God with all of your being, and love your neighbor as yourself. Each of these two commandments encompass an entire list of commandments. Most notably, the first 4 of the Ten Commandments instruct us on how to have love for God, and the last 6 of the Ten Commandments instruct us on how to have love for each other. Furthermore, there are two ways that you can fail to keep any commandment:

1. You can practice it outwardly, but not be sincere in your heart.
2. You can fail to practice it.

Throughout the gospel accounts, there is a lot of criticism directed at the Pharisees because of how they failed to keep the two great commandments:

1. They outwardly kept the commandments concerning love towards God, but were not sincere in their hearts about these. 
2. They failed to practice love for their neighbor.

The Pharisees tithed on everything, even down to the herbs they grew. They kept from doing work on the Sabbath to the point that they didn't even allow people to carry anything on the Sabbath day or walk more than a certain distance. They had rules about what things you could swear by to avoid taking God's name in vain. But they were not sincere: Christ often pointed out that they did what they did in order to be seen by other men as religious and to increase their own status.

Simultaneously, their system of rules became a hinderance to loving their neighbor, at times even forbidding them from helping others. When they criticized the disciples for gathering grain on the Sabbath, they would have rather seen these people go hungry than "break the Sabbath" (let it be clear that the disciples were not actually breaking the Sabbath by God's standard, but by the Pharisees'). The story of the Good Samaritan is another example of how the Pharisees completely neglected to show love for others.

Many Christians today are as bad as the Pharisees were, albeit with the transgressions reversed:

1. They fail to practice love towards God (though they often claim to love Him).
2. They outwardly show love for their neighbor, but they are not sincere in their hearts. 

Let me clarify what I mean when I say that they fail to practice love towards God, because no one will admit that they don't love God. 1 John 5:3 clearly says that "this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments." Therefore, having love for God is all about having the right actions with the right attitude.

As I mentioned, the first 4 of the Ten Commandments show us how to love God, while the latter 6 show us how to love our neighbors. Here is (yet another) list, explaining how most Christians today break each of the first 4:

1. Many people don't even realize when they are breaking the 1st commandment. You don't have to necessarily pray to another god in order to break it! Habakkuk 1:11 speaks of the Babylonians, "whose own strength is their god" - there are many things that people exalt above God.
2. Many Christians today blatantly break the 2nd commandment by having crosses and pictures of Jesus (see my recent article: The 2nd Commandment: How is it Different from the 1st?)
3. Breaking of the 3rd commandment is rampant in our society. People exclaim "OMG" at every turn. They use euphemisms such as "Gah," "Gosh," or "Golly," which are just as bad. They "swear to God" in everyday conversation. 
4. The 4th commandment is broken because so few people remember the Sabbath day - let alone rest on it! And by Sabbath, I mean the seventh day Sabbath - the one that God ordained at creation, which he hallowed and commanded, and which He never changed.

As far as love for one's neighbor goes, just look at the number of professing Christians who own businesses but use dishonest scales (this can be taken on a local or, more commonly, corporate level). Look at the number of people who claim they believe in God, yet commit adultery. Our society is full of it. And I know that we are all sinners, but we are not all unrepentant sinners. People know that what they are doing wrong, and they don't even care. The point that the masses are missing is that we can't just go on living our lives the way we were before God called us. One prevailing understanding of God's grace today is that our sins are covered no matter what - and that's simply not true:

Jude 4

They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

Yes, God is eager to forgive, but God's grace is not a free-pass to sin! On the contrary, we are supposed to be changed, transformed, and molded into Christ-like behavior by the power of the Holy Spirit. Christ-like behavior means repenting and not continuing willfully in sin: this is the fruit of true Godly repentance. Furthermore, you don't have to deny Christ with your mouth in order to "deny" Him - no professing Christian would do that! Rather, people deny Him by claiming to follow Him but not doing what He requires of us.

As we have seen, both the Pharisees and modern day Christians have problems with how they follow God. They all fall prey to the same two problems:

1. The neglect of one of the main portions of the law: love for God and love for your neighbor.
2. The insincerity in observing the portion that is not neglected.

Indeed, any of us can fall prey to one of these problems! Even if we fail to fulfill the two great commandments for just the smallest amount of time, we are just as guilty - and we need to be able to see it and repent! In light of this, we should each examine ourselves, and be striving to truly live by every Word of God.