Are you concerned with following the rules? Do you make a concerted effort to follow the law? Would you like it to be easier to keep the rules and obey the law? What if there were principles to help you with that? Would you abide by those principles?
We follow more rules than we can count. There are rules for our schools, workplaces, sports, and even in our families. If we were to attempt to write them all down, it would take far more time than we want to spend on it. Yet, we unconsciously follow them.
In addition to rules, there are laws we follow. There are city, county, state, and federal laws. We, again, unconsciously follow them. Why? We have learned laws over the course of our lifetime, just as we have learned the rules we abide by. Once we have learned them, they are filed away in our brains, and we no longer need to consciously think about them.
God has given laws and rules to follow. Sometimes we think there are too many to remember, and they are too hard to follow. But we have a simple way to go about following all of them. There are only two commandments or principles we need to follow, and by following them we follow the full set. We often boil them down to a simple saying, love God and love neighbor.
If we filter every action, word we speak, and viewpoint through them, we will inherently follow the law. We simply need to make these two principles be our guiding mantra for everything we say, do, and think. It is not easy. It takes work on our part. At first, we must consciously think about them. The more we think about them, the more they become ingrained in us. Once they are fully ingrained, we will no longer need to think of them, we will unconsciously obey them, just as we do with other rules and laws.
I pray we all consciously think about the two commandments Jesus gave us. I pray we filter everything we do through them. I pray each one of us will eventually come to the point of unconsciously following them. Follow Jesus’ commands. Focus on the principles. Make your life simpler.
Matthew 22:37-40 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Marty Pressey 