I recently read a rule on writing: write the way you speak. And so this is me trying to write how I speak, only…I don’t—actually—know that I would’ve started off so eloquently as I have. It might’ve started something more like me interrupting your peaceful train of thought on something much more…stupid— “so yo I read this rule about writing the way you speak,” as you roll your eyes to look at me with annoyance for interrupting a perfectly awesome daydream about things I would not care at all about other than, of course, the fact you cared enough to depart your attention from the society I so happen to inhabit. Which is unacceptable. I can’t have that.

Anyway. The point is, I need your attention. “Why” might be your urge that boils from within to a steam for my ears to hear, but let me save you that frustration by demanding you obey these two commandments before you burn…me (haha—did you like that pause, cause I did).

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And 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 great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Upon these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets.”—Matthew 22:36-40 (NASB)

See, now, doesn’t that make you feel all better…

If you’re of the literal type, you might be driven to brink of insanity when stuck on whether your author is being humorous or narcissistic—or possibly both. And so let me save you the suspense by affirming that I look at myself in the mirror when singing, also after taking a selfie, which causes me to start singing again. So basically I’m singing as I look at myself in the reflection of my computer screen:

OUR GOOOOOD…IS AN AWWESOMMEE GOD
HE REIGNS…FROM HEAVEN ABOVE
WITH WIIIISDOM, POWER, AND LOVE—

Because after all, our God is an awesome God for making someone like me— am I right!? And if you haven’t laughed at all by anything I’ve written thus far…welp, congratulations, you interpret everything from an extreme literal perspective. Which is perfectly fine, you just…might, well…need a moment, or two, to breathe, but regardless; my sense of humor is outstanding— am I right!?—(last one—that was the last one).

So now that you’ve loved me this far into your reading, lets talk about how God loves you.

YOU SHALL LOVE

I don’t think Jesus—the proclaimed Son of Man—would’ve said what He didn’t learn from His Father—the proclaimed God—without you—the proclaimed reader—in mind when He said: You shall love… .

Is it wrong of me to believe that Jesus knew the conditions for such a—an axiomatic—statement yet to be proven on the terms of human nature?

I guess what I mean by that is…because Jesus knew that mine and your condition of sin (as equivalent to those questioning) blinds us from seeing the truth of such love accomplished in Him; how could there be any other way for us to see that eternal meaning of Love that God is, than for Jesus to die without tasting sin—although tempted to the point of sweating blood in resistance as you might recall “yet not as I [Jesus] will, but as You [Father] will“? The discipline of God’s Just wrath due our sin could only be quenched by the blood and water of the innocent Lamb of God—Jesus our Christ. And that, by what Jesus did on the cross, gives us a new way of seeing.

Whatever the hurt, pain, or suffering you’re experiencing; you might be on trail for your faith. And I encourage you by calling to mind where Jesus is, your Intercessor of the faith in which you hold so dear. Keep holding, hold on, don’t let go. God knows the truth of your condition so intimately that He gave His only Son as that Lamb for the sake of you. He loves you.

Don’t get me wrong, I write this in “confidence” while yet experiencing my own set of trials tempting my carnal intellect for all kinds of ghastly evil; a 3 or 4 letter word at my fingertips all too simple to type with a swift motion of my pinky—*enter*—is all it takes. Then down the rabbit hole I go with all reputation to proceed me, and that might be you at this very moment or possibly even the next. Is it? Will it be?

If it is; if it will be; be encouraged! There will be a necessary discipline, two world’s divided before you; one world will hate you, and the other will identify you as a hypocrite, but live in the former and not the latter even when you might visit the latter for a time (Don’t stay there!) Keep the faith!

Jesus showed us how we shall love, I pray we are doing so in this Christmas season, and even to death.

Amen