“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” (Colossians 3:1-2 NIV)

These verses (a) establish our top priorities, and (b) give us our reason to do so.

TWO parts of our being are to be “set on things above”: our HEARTS, and our MINDS. Our priority should affect BOTH our thoughts and our emotions. Both our ways of thinking and our emotional responses to the people and events in our lives should be based on our relationship with Christ.

So, do I regard people around me with the judgement that comes so “naturally” to me, or do I regard them with the compassion of Christ? When challenged to give up time or treasure for someone else, do I respond with the selfish feelings of holding on to all I’ve got for myself, or do I respond with the generosity of Christ?

What motivates me to re-direct both my thoughts and emotions? I “have been raised with Christ”. Not in physical terms, not yet anyway. But if I have received Christ as my Savior, I have been spiritually raised with Christ. Looking ahead, the following verses will have much more to say about this transformation.

What do I do with these verses? The question I need to ask myself is “Looking at my daily life, to what extent have I truly re-directed both my thoughts and emotions to the ‘things above’? Where do I need to continue my growth to conform both my thinking and my emotional responses to Christ?”

“But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, …”

There is much more to glean from Paul’s introduction to his letter to the Galatians, but I want to focus today on one simple four-word phrase in verse 15: “before I was born”. Paul claims here to have been chosen by God for his faith in Christ and his ministry to the Gentiles.

This isn’t the first time we’ve encountered the concept of election, or predestination. Jesus said to his disciples in John 6:44: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”, and again in John 15:16: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you …”. In Acts 13:48 it is reported of the Gentiles that “… they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.”

Some time after writing to the church in Galatia, Paul wrote to the Ephesian Christians in chapter 1 verse 4: “Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, …”.

The important principle here is that, although you have received God’s grace of salvation through your faith in Christ, it is God who gave you that faith! It’s not your mother, your pastor, or yourself; it is entirely God’s work in your life. God has probably used people in your life, just as He did in mine, to work His sovereign will for you and for me, but it’s still His doing.

If this concept is new to you, it can seem to be capricious and arbitrary, according to human judgement. However, Paul explained to the Roman Christians in chapter 8, verses 29-30: “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” So, although you and I make a choice to believe the gospel and accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, God gives us our faith as a gift based on His divine foreknowledge of the choice we would make. He knew what our choice would be even before we were born; even before He created the world into which we would be born. Paul wrote to the Ephesians: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God“.

And what of those who don’t believe, who just don’t want to hear about matters of faith, or just want to be left alone? God foreknew their choices also. It’s not that God doesn’t want them to be saved; He wants everyone to be saved (1 Timothy 2:1-4), but some people just won’t have it, and after enough resistance, God allows them to go their own way. Read Romans 1:18-32 … it’s a scary passage! What seems to always strike fear into my heart as I write this is the steady drumbeat of repeated resignation in verses 24, 26 and 28. “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts” (v. 24). “God gave them up to dishonorable passions.” (v. 26). “God gave them up to a debased mind” (v. 28). I get a mental image as I read this of a divine Father throwing up His hands in exasperation over the stubborn rebellion of His beloved children. If you and I will stubbornly hold out and refuse to say to God “Have it Your way.”, then God will eventually give up and say to us “Have it your way.”

I don’t want it my way! Matthew 7:13 says “For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.” My way leads to my own destruction! God’s way leads to His mercy and grace, and by grace, to salvation.

“And when he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men met him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way. And behold, they cried out, “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?” Now a herd of many pigs was feeding at some distance from them. And the demons begged him, saying, “If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs.” And he said to them, “Go.” So they came out and went into the pigs, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters. The herdsmen fled, and going into the city they told everything, especially what had happened to the demon-possessed men. And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region.” (Matthew 8:28-34, ESV)

There’s quite a lot to study here, and many questions to address … more than I will get to today! Who were the Gadarenes? Why did Jesus grant the demons’ request to be cast into the pigs? What happened to the demons when the pigs drowned? We could probably write a book on these seven verses.

I believe Matthew’s primary objective here was to demonstrate and document Jesus’ power over the demons. When they asked Him “Have you come here to torment us before the time?”, they may have been referring to the future event where Jesus will cast Satan and his followers (demons) into the Abyss at the Judgement. Jesus certainly has the authority to do this at any time; God’s existence is outside of time. The demons, however, are most likely bound by time in the same way we are before death, and they didn’t want to run out of time.

Matthew wasn’t intending to give us a full explanation regarding the ultimate fate of these demons; just to show us that these demons recognized Jesus for who He is, and that they were totally subject to His authority.

The sad part, for me, is the response of the Gadarenes who came out of the city to meet Jesus. Some had suffered economic loss with the drowning of their herd of pigs. Their focus, however, was on their economic loss, NOT on the presence of the Savior of Sinners within their midst. “They begged him to leave their region.” How sad to see them choose swine before Savior.

I fear this reaction is all too common in today’s world. Too many choose career, wealth, the trappings of wealth and power over depth of faith and submission to the Savior. How many of our friends and neighbors choose their own per-conceived pseudo-scientific notions about how the world works and where it came from, and dismiss the spiritual side of life as a weakness of the narrow-minded? How often do we get our own priorities mixed up, and put our time and treasure into the pursuit of worldly pleasures rather than the achievement of God’s will within our world?

Who are your friends and neighbors who may be begging Jesus to just go away and leave them alone? What are the times when you or I ask Jesus to wait in the wings while we pursue our own priorities?

“Then Pharaoh hastily called Moses and Aaron and said, ‘I have sinned against the Lord your God, and against you. Now therefore, forgive my sin, please, only this once, and plead with the Lord your God only to remove this death from me.'”

As we’ve been reading through the book of Exodus, we’re often tempted to think what a foolish and short-sighted ruler Pharaoh was. How could he have been so clueless? After the first few plagues, how could he not have seen that God is in command, and that all the earth is his?

If that’s what we’re thinking, however, it is we who are missing the point! We often fail to see just how much Pharaoh is like each of us, or rather, how much we are like him.

Pharaoh was at least close to an important understanding when he said “I have sinned against the Lord your God”. At least he realized he had sinned. Even at this point, however, notice that he said “the Lord YOUR God”. The Lord was not yet HIS god.

Even though he’s pleading with a God whom he personally rejects, he goes on to say “forgive my sin”. His true motive, however, is revealed in the words “only to remove this death from me”. His heart is revealed in what he didn’t ask for. He didn’t ask to be forgiven his guilt. He didn’t ask to have his relationship with the one true God restored. He didn’t ask to have his heart transformed, to align the desires of his heart with the will of God.

Earlier in verse 3, God asked Pharoah, speaking through Moses, “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me?”. This shows what God really wanted from Pharoah, and it’s what God wants today from you and I. Pharoah’s primary sin was not in refusing to let the Israelites go, it was in refusing to humble himself before the Creator.

And so it is today. Yes, it’s a sin when I’m selfish, or when I lie about what I’ve been doing, or when I watch media that conflicts with God’s standard. Whatever my sin, however, it all comes back to my stubborn heart, saying “MY will be done, Lord! I’ll get around to your will later.”

Pharaoh never did learn to humble himself before his God. The question now is, will I?

“Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

We will all, from time to time, be besieged by evildoers. They won’t characterize themselves that way. They’ll consider themselves friends, or co-workers, or supervisors. Maybe they’ll be family. They won’t consider their words and actions evil. Instead, they’ll be practical, pragmatic, or even “helpful”. Usually, however, they will be putting “self” first in their priorities. God’s will and way is second, at best, in their priorities. Their “wisdom” says that if they don’t look out for number one (i.e., themselves), who will?

That second sentence, “they will soon fade like grass” brought back a real-life memory for me. I was reasonably new at a job, when a longer-term employee cornered me and offered this in-my-face advice: “Forget everything you knew before coming here! It ain’t worth …”. I won’t finish that sentence as he did.

At the time, that seemed a pretty solid put-down. A year later, I was still on the job there; he wasn’t. A few years later, very few employees there remembered him or recognized his name. He had “faded like the grass”.

Because wrongdoers aren’t shy about taking advantage of situations and even of other people, they sometimes appear to be getting ahead. God’s faithful see this and may be tempted to envy their success. God says don’t; it’s only temporary.

“Trust in the Lord”. David writes here a simple, yet difficult, prescription when we find ourselves besieged by people who either intend to and delight in doing us wrong, or who simply wrong us because they’re putting themselves first. Just trust God. Accept by FAITH that God sees, God knows, and God is working all things out for us (Romans 8:28).

And as we’re trusting God, “do good”. Figure out what is the next right thing to do, and do it. Seek God’s will for what comes next; pray for God’s Holy Spirit to guide you, and do as you’re led to do.

As we “dwell in the land”, that is, live within the fallen, broken, sinful world that resulted from Adam and Eve’s rebellion, we need to seek out God’s faithful, and surround ourselves with those friends. We will only find the encouragement and accountability we need among the faithful.

If we “delight ourselves in the Lord” … if we make God’s priorities our priorities, His concerns our concerns, and if we find peace and tranquility in His promises and His faithfulness, we can be assured that God will bring to us that which brings us the purest and truest fulfillment.

“But King David said to Ornan, ‘No, but I will buy them for the full price. I will not take for the Lord what is yours, nor offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.'”

The backstory to this verse is David’s sin and repentance. At the beginning of the chapter, David falls to the temptation of pride, and orders a census of the people. In and of itself, there was nothing wrong with performing a census. It was the motivation behind it — pride — that was his sin.

In verse 8, David recognized and admitted his sin: “I have sinned greatly in that I have done this thing.” God’s judgement, however, fell upon David’s people, not just upon David.

After 70,000 of David’s nation have fallen to pestilence, King David is repenting and praying in sackcloth, and God orders him to build an alter in a specific place, the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. David goes to Ornan and offers to buy the property from him, but Ornan, in his desire to honor both his king and his God, seeks to give the property to David. That’s when refuses the gift and insists upon buying the property, as related in the lead verse above.

David understood the principle of sacrifice. Giving to God that which had cost him nothing would not honor God. On one level, sacrifice is about paying a penalty for sin. At the same time, it’s about demonstrating obedience. It wouldn’t be demonstrating any realistic submission or obedience if it cost nothing; that would be too easy.

Sacrifice is also a demonstration to ourselves, that there is a real cost to sin that, a cost that Jesus paid because we could not.

When I was a child, there was a song we sang in worship which contained the phrase “our sacrifice of praise”. Even as a child, that phrase drove me crazy! I disliked it so much that, as the congregation sang, I sat silent through that one phrase. Although I understood very little at so young an age, I understood the song was misusing the word “sacrifice”. What had it cost us to come to the church, sit in the air-conditioned sanctuary on padded pews, and sing? Very, very little. I understood even then that we really had sacrificed almost nothing.

We don’t offer sacrifices today as the Israelites did; Jesus is the sacrifice for our sins. But in response to His sacrifice, in a response of love, we choose to sacrifice time, effort and cost in service to others. Sometimes that means sacrificing to serve other Christians, to care for those whose ability to care for themselves is limited. Sometimes that means to care for the poor, because some may not yet know Christ as their savior, and because that’s what Jesus would have done for them. Sometimes it means to give time and treasure and effort in direct outreach, to bring the spiritually lost to saving faith.

We need to remember, however, the true meaning of sacrifice. It’s supposed to cost us something, something that we value. We sometimes chafe at the time we spend in service, thinking of the other things we could be doing, and sometimes believe we should be doing. We sometimes think the work is too hard, or the day too hot. We think of the things we might really need this money for next week as we sacrifice it today.

Satan wants us to feel that way. Satan wants us to find no joy in sacrifice. He wants us to forget what sacrifice is all about. The best way to combat these feelings is to remember what was sacrificed for us. When I need a reminder, one of my favorite readings is Philippians 2:1-11.

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”

I have a concern regarding these verses, that “work heartily” will be read as good advice, failing to see it for the command that it really is. To obey this command, we must first understand it. What does it mean to work heartily? I’m no authority, but I’m going to suggest these six aspects of meaning:

• To work with energy: to put all reasonable effort and strength into your work. Obedient followers of Christ aren’t lazy.
• To work with enthusiasm: this conveys the idea of mental energy and emotional engagement. Obedient followers of Christ aren’t apathetic.
• To work with focus: somewhat related to enthusiasm, but further refining the idea to focus the mental energy and emotional engagement in the right direction, onto the right goals.
• To work selflessly … for the employer’s benefit, not for your own benefit. Your first priority should be to accomplish the employer’s objectives. You may gain some benefit as well, to the extent that your objectives are aligned with the employer’s, but that’s not your intention.
• To work with perseverance. You don’t give up when the work is difficult or the achievements are elusive. When the door closes, you come in through the window. When the light goes out, you light a candle.
• To work with joy! Obedient followers of Christ aren’t glum. They light up the room with their positive attitude, and make the day better for everyone around them.

This passage goes on to give us a mind-set which will help us obey. If we keep in mind that we’re really working for Christ, and keep in mind all that Christ has done for us, it’s much easier to consistently work with energy, enthusiasm, focus, selflessness, perseverance and joy. Yes, it appears to the world around us that we’re working for the bank, electric company, builder or trucker, but that’s just the appearance. We’re working for Christ, and the employer gets the benefit.

That mind-set is easier to assume and maintain in view of the promise which comes with the command. As we work for Christ, we’re promised a reward. The employer will provide the first and most obvious reward, which is the payment we receive for our work. Anyone who has put their whole heart into a job, however, knows that the pay is only a part, sometimes a small part, of the reward. Additional benefits come from doing the job, and directly from God. Rewards I’ve received from my jobs include:

• The satisfaction of knowing a job has been done well.
• The recognition and appreciation of colleagues for quality work.
• The joy of accomplishing an innovative solution which enhances the overall work product.
• The experience which makes us more effective on subsequent jobs.
• The friendship of associates, sometimes becoming a life-long relationship.
• The fellowship of trusted friends.
• The pleasure of sharing experience and life lessons with younger colleagues.

Yes, the paycheck covers the bills, but these intangible rewards are the ones we remember when we look back on a lifetime of work. These form the sweet memories for which we can only thank God for His immeasurably rich gifts.

“You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right is his own eyes.”

Wow! What a descriptive statement of the modern age! This statement sounds like it could be a quote from last week’s sermon … but it is not. This thoroughly-modern admonition was written twenty-seven centuries ago! Technology changes, but human nature remains a constant.

Before we dig in, let’s get the context. Moses is speaking to the Israelites, who are just on the other side of the Jordan river from the land God has promised them. They’ve been wandering in the wilderness for the previous forty years, a result of their lack of faith when they first approached the promised land and refused to go in, out of fear. Now, as a new generation approaches the same land, Moses gives them God’s laws in great detail, comprising most of the book of Deuteronomy.

Moses’ specific topic at this moment is worship. He is telling the Israelites that they must worship God as He has specified; not as they might want to. They are going into a land where the people have been worshiping many idols and false gods. Moses’ concern is that the Israelites will pick up these practices from the people they are about to dispossess, as they have shown a strong tendency to do in the past.

In the larger view, however, Moses is giving his people a complete system of law, delivered from God, through Moses to the people of God’s choosing. While we might read the Old Testament and think that the Israelites were really bad about putting their own ideas and opinions ahead of God’s law, they’re not the only people to do so. In the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans, he wrote “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” (v. 21-23)

The “they” in these verses is “all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (v. 18) … in other words, all of us! The most fundamental sin, the sin which gives rise to all others, is when we do whatever we think right in our own eyes. In doing so, we fail to honor God as the God that He is, our creator, sustainer and lawgiver.

Before we can cheat on our taxes, for example, we must first choose to honor our own wants, fears and values over God’s values. Before we can view pornography, we must first substitute our own judgement regarding right and wrong for God’s Word. Before we can pursue a wrong relationship, we must first place ourselves on God’s throne within our hearts, and push Him off of it.

Look around you, at the contemporary world. Doesn’t it look like most of the people around you are doing whatever they deem right in their own eyes? It’s a different time and a different place, and we are a different people, but it’s still the same sin.

Maybe they don’t know. They should. Paul wrote to the Romans “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.” But God has also placed us here with the gospel message, to help them see what’s right in front of their eyes. Are you telling the world around you that they need a Savior, and pointing the way to where they can find Him? Am I?

1 Kings chapters 1-11 (see below)

Author’s note: this quiet-time study is a departure from our usual format, in that we are examining lessons taken from eleven chapters, not just from a verse or two. We will return to the usual format, but I believe there’s much to learn and apply from the “big picture” of these chapters.

Have you ever heard somebody described as “the smartest guy in the room”? Perhaps you’re the one to have been described this way. Such a description would surely fit the recently-departed Norman Geisler, renowned author and teacher. In his case, you wouldn’t have needed to check first to see which room you’re in!

I’ve known others who might have been described in such terms, within their own area of expertise. A couple of them worked in the field of relational databases, and were known world-wide for their expertise. I attended the retirement party for a man described as one of the top five metallurgists in the world.

None, however, could ever come close to the wisdom of Solomon. This king of the Israelites, the son of King David, was known throughout the world of his time for his astounding wisdom. Chapter 10 of the book of 1 Kings describes the visit of the Queen of Sheba, who came to confirm that what she had been told of Solomon’s great wisdom was true. Her conclusion, having spent time talking with him and observing him in action, was this: “Your wisdom and prosperity surpass the report that I heard.”

Where did Solomon’s wisdom come from? It really wasn’t his to claim as his own; it was a gift from God. The vaunted wisdom of Solomon begins in 1 Kings chapter 3: “At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, ‘Ask what I shall give you.’ And Solomon said, ‘You have shown great and steadfast love to your servant David my father, because he walked before you in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart toward you. And you have kept for him this great and steadfast love and have given him a son to sit on his throne this day. And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered or counted for multitude. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?‘” (1 Kings 3:5-9)

Solomon was wise enough already to be humble and recognize his limitations, and wise enough to know that his greatest need was for the wisdom to govern, rather than for riches or power. That’s not a bad starting point; even without God’s help, he already bested most of us! But God granted his request: “And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore, so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all other men …” (1 Kings 4:29-31a)

OK, let’s think about this. “God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure.” God’s got a very big measuring stick! I’ve known some pretty smart people, and I’m sure you have also, but none could ever measure up to the God-given wisdom of Solomon! If God set out to create the wisest man on the earth, God can accomplish whatever He sets out to do, without question.

Even then, God set some standards of behavior for Solomon to meet. All that wisdom didn’t get him a free pass to do whatever he wanted. God gave Solomon a command with a promise, and a completely different promise if Solomon failed to obey. “And as for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness, doing according to all that I have commanded you, and keeping my statutes and my rules, then I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.’ But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes that I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and the house that I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight, and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples.” (1 Kings 9:4-7)

This wasn’t a difficult command to understand. Obey God, and keep the throne within the family. Disobey God, and lose it. Considering the wealth and power that God had given Solomon along with his wisdom, there was no lack of incentive to obey God.

There were numerous commands to which God was referring in this passage, but the primary one was this: “You shall have no other gods before me.” (Deuteronomy 5:7)

This command was so important that God gave other commands to his people, specifically to build a hedge of protection around them, to help them stay safe from temptations. The one which Solomon would have his biggest problem with was found in Deuteronomy 7:1-4: “When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly.”

God knows His people. God knows how difficult it is for men to resist the charms of a loving wife who wants her own way, and knows how to sweep her man off his feet. Just as a Godly wife is God’s best resource to mold and shape her man into the spiritual leader God wants him to be, an un-Godly wife is Satan’s greatest tool to lead his heart away from God.

For all his wisdom, Solomon’s wealth and pride lead him to make some foolish decisions. “Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, ‘You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.’ Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.” (1 Kings 11:1-4)

Perhaps most of us, struggling to make a marriage work with one wife, would say that Solomon’s first mistake was to take on 700 of them! It’s difficult to imagine how the family dynamic works out with any congeniality when 700 wives are competing with each other for one husband’s time and attention. Even so, from God’s point of view, that wasn’t Solomon’s biggest mistake. His greatest error was the national origins and associated pagan religions of these wives. Solomon paid the price for his prideful rebellion against God.

“And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded. Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant.” (1 Kings 11:9-11)

God had made a promise to Solomon what would happen if he failed to obey God, and in these verses, God kept that promise. God always keeps His promises, positive or negative.

OK, so what will we take home from this?

1. When God gives a command, it is for our own benefit. God wasn’t just being discriminatory in ruling out intermarriage with the surrounding nations. He knew that pagan wives would draw their husband’s devotions away from God. For national leaders, pagan wives would eventually draw the entire nation away from God. King Solomon broke God’s command, and just proved that God was right all along.

2. God keeps His promises. He told Abraham “I will make a great nation of you”, and He did just that. He told Solomon “If you worship other gods, I will take the throne away from you.” Solomon foolishly pursued the worship of other gods (conceding to his wives’ demands), and God kept His promise. God will keep His promises to us also. He will bless our obedience to His Holy Word. He will punish our disobedience.

3. Paul was right when he wrote that “all have sinned”. If the most wise man ever to walk the Earth was drawn into sin by his pagan wives, surely we also will fall into temptation and sin at some time. We’re only fooling ourselves if we claim to have conquered temptation and risen above sin.

“… knit together in love …”

This one really jumped out at me as I read the first half of Colossians 2 to our class. Did you ever see your mother, aunt or grandmother knitting? In my childhood, I was around my mother quite a bit while she was knitting. That memory created for me a powerful mental image of what Christian love should look like.

In knitting, I saw my mother take a single thread of yarn (or was it two?), and work with the yarn to create first a solid fabric, and eventually a scarf or sweater. Knit fabric is all tied together so tightly it creates a solid fabric. Each stitch supports and holds together the ones before and behind, above and below.

That’s what Christians loving each other should look like. John 13:34-35 records Jesus as saying “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.”

There’s quite a lot here, that I’ll explore in greater depth in other writings. For now, just notice three great truths about this jaw-dropping passage. First, Jesus said this was a new commandment. Humanity had been in existence for many, many generations. God had given the Israelites “the Law”, what we now consider the Old Law or the first five books of the Old Testament. In all of that time, thousands of years, God had never given anyone this command. Now, through Jesus, God is giving the disciples (and through them, all of us) a new command! That should make us sit up and take notice.

Second, it’s not just any sort of love that is commanded. Jesus didn’t say “I hope you like each other.” He didn’t command them just to put up with each other, quietly, without complaint. No, this is an all-encompassing sacrifical love, a love like no other. Jesus said “just as I have loved you.”

How did Jesus love His disciples, and us? He gave up the unimaginable glory of Heaven as one of the Holy Trinity to take on human form, to walk the dusty roads of Judea in sandals, to sweat under the hot sun, to soak in the cold rain. He didn’t come into the world as a member of a wealthy family, or an influential ruling family. He came as the son of a carpenter. “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” (Philippians 2:5-7)

Moreover, he gave himself as a substitutionary sacrifice for our sins! “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8) “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him [Christ], having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:13-14) This is how Jesus loved his disciples!

Third, Jesus said that if we love each other as he loved us, His new command for us, that love would be distinctive within the world, and make us recognizable as His disciples. Nobody else loves others as sacrificially as Jesus loved us. This expectation implies that all people everywhere are hard-wired at birth to recognize such love, and to associate such love with God.

How about you? How about me? Is our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ so sacrificial, so distinctive that the un-saved world around us will recognize this love as something unique, something that could only proceed from a relationship with the Creator? Is our love a love that knits us together like a divine scarf, each stitch supporting the ones before and after, the ones above and below? Are we obeying out Savior’s command in John 13?