The Law is Not About You

In our fallen human condition, we are oriented toward seeking that which is best for ourselves. We scoff at God's commandments and reject his ways as unjust. It is a perspective that is upside down and backward, for in the end, we will destroy ourselves with the worldly pleasures of self-indulgence. Only when we turn from our self-centered ways and surrender to God will we begin to understand that obedience to his commandments is the way to true freedom.

The lawyer who questioned Jesus (Luke 10:25-37) was right in his summation of the law. It is all about loving God "with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." He should have stopped there. But he went a step further, "desiring to justify himself."

For all his knowledge of the law, the lawyer remained a self-centered person. He saw the law as being all about himself. He wanted to reverse the order. From his perspective, justification under the law began with love of self, then love of neighbor, then love of God. His question, "And who his my neighbor?" was overflowing with a misdirected love for himself. "Who is my neighbor, so that I can love him as I love myself, for then I can also love God?"

Read it all at Columbia Faith and Culture Examiner.