The thoughts of a renowned Philosopher…
Who is only renowned unto himself…
Sometimes these thoughts are really provoking or challenging, sometimes they are just something to chew on…
A while back I was on Lance Walnau's web site, LanceLearning.com, and he was promoting a free download if you registered for his free newsletter. Since I was interested in his site, I was considering the newsletter anyway, but what really got my attention was what he was offering. It was a PDF download of the 50 Commands of Christ. This sounded pretty interesting to me, so I went ahead and signed up for his newsletter (which I would suggest you do as well).
To be honest, I have had the download for a while now, but I never got around to reading it. It was one of those things that I knew I wanted to sit down and really take the time to look at it, but that sometime wasn't now. However, recently I saw it again and it caught my eye.
One of the things that I really appreciated about this PDF was that Lance starts off by giving 9 Promises that Jesus gives to those who obey His commands. These nine things that Lance mentions are all very good things that we all want in our life. Every one of the promises Lance mentions also has a Bible verses next to it. As I looked through these promises, things like God's Love, peace, true joy, purification, answers to prayer, I knew, I wanted to know more about what Christ's commands were.
The first command that Lance mentions is to be reconciled to others. The second command is to not commit adultery, the third is to keep your word. If you thought you were keeping Christ's commands, it get's a little tricky around number six, which is to be perfect. This is when it hits me, I can never fulfill all of Christ's commands.
In all of the entire New Testament, Jesus gives us 50 simple commands, He doesn't say what music to listen to, what to wear, what to drive, Jesus never tells us not to drink or do drugs. As a matter of fact, Scripture doesn't tell us who to marry, where to live, or even what job we should have. Now I know that 50 commands may seem like a lot to think about, but if we had to list all of the rules and commands of our Christian sub-culture, I can assure you we could come up with more than 50. To be honest I stopped reading after number 6. I need more time to reflect on each command as I read them.
What I cannot get out of my head though, is that I can't even get past number 6 on the list. As a matter of fact, if we were to measure ourselves according to the measurement that Jesus will use against us, how many of us can get past number 1? If I can't keep the first one, is there any use trying to keep all 50 at once? Of course we can accomplish all things through Christ who strengthens us (Phil. 4:13), but it gives us perspective of what Christ is actually asking of us, as Christians. He doesn't want a half hearted effort. He want's all of us.
I would highly encourage you to all go out and sign up for Lance's newsletter so that you can download the PDF as well. Yes, I did link to the PDF, but why not support the guy who put it together? If you don't like it you can unsubscribe later. After downloading the PDF and taking a look at it, come back and leave a comment. How well are you keeping the commands of Christ?
