Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Take up my cross and follow Me


Tuesday

And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.  Mark 11:12

Just before Jesus enters Jerusalem yet another time, on Tuesday, He and the disciples paused before the now withered fig tree.  Which He uses once again for a teaching moment.  Peter does call him “Rabbi,” after all.  

Jesus ties together the idea of Have faith in God with that of forgiving our brother.  Because really that is the quantifiable measurement of our trust in His love and mercy and forgiveness.  There is nothing between Him and me.  No barriers.  And how easy to release others, when we stand in the sweet spot of His grace.  

This understanding is built on the foundation for His teaching on the greatest commandment that afternoon, 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.

Once again, He ties together these ideas into one action, this is one commandment, because loving my neighbor is what happens when I love the LORD my God. 

And on Friday, after drying His hands with the towel wrapped around His waist, He will stand up and gives them a new commandment, the deeper understanding of what it looks like to love The LORD God: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

In love He lay down His life.  Total release.  Let me go and do the same.  

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