Allen Church of Christ

We are continuing to examine how Christ lived and served the Father.

Jesus lived and served the Father by knowing how to prioritize His life. Last week, we looked at Jesus’ first priority—He always put loving the Father fi rst. This allowed His second priority to be proper and pleasing to the Father—to love everyone else second. In response to a lawyer’s question, Jesus said “’You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind’ This is the fi rst and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and Prophets” (Matt. 22:37-40).

The first priority of Jesus allowed Him to love His neighbor because without loving God, one would not know how to get to heaven and thus, love himself. To love your neighbor as yourself, one must first understand how to love self. It is in the process of loving God that one learns the commandments of God and thus, how to love God. “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15). It is in the commandments of God where one learns what sin is. “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, “You shall not covet” (Rom. 7:7). Once one understands that sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4), thus transgression of God’s law, he finds himself separated from God through sin (1 John 3:6-8; Isa. 59:1-2). One cannot love himself while being separated from God. Therefore to love himself, he must right this relationship with God by removing the sin which separates him from God, else he will remain separated from God for all eternity (Matt. 18:8-9; Luke 13:3,5).

Once a person learns that sin separates from God and that he is a sinner (Rom. 3:23, 6:23), loving himself becomes the question of: how do I resolve my problem of sin by becoming approved by God? “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). So, now one learns that he does not become approved of by God without hard work. Approval by God is only achieved through diligence, and this diligence allows one to not be ashamed, because they can rightly divide the word of truth. In other words, they love God by keeping His commandments and therefore can stand approved of by Him, and this is truly loving self.

So, what is this diligence which allows one to rightly divide the word of truth and thus be approved of by God? It is having faith! “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6). Without faith, one cannot love himself properly because he cannot be pleasing to God, and one cannot have faith without diligently seeking God. Therefore, in order to understand how to love self, one must understand how to have faith. “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). The diligence referred to in Second Timothy 2:15 and Hebrews 11:6 is studying God’s Word, which produces faith that, in turn, allows one to be approved of by God and rightly divide the word of truth, which allows one to love self.

Now that one understands how to love self, he can love his neighbor properly by loving God first and then desiring for his neighbor the same. Jesus loved and served the Father by prioritizing God first and everyone else second, because He wanted for everyone else the same relationship with God that He had. “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). When we learn to seek and to save that which was lost, we understand Jesus’ priorities—God first, everyone else second, and deny self to accomplish this task. Are your priorities the same as Christ’s?

Just something to consider!