Luke 10:25-28
"Do This and You
Will Live"
Jesus sets a lofty goal
here. He affirms the key to eternal life is to love God with all of who you
are—your whole being—and to care for others as you do yourself. This is how to
truly live.
On one hand it sounds
simple, on the other, impossible. We wonder how to love God with all of
ourselves? What does it look like to love other people the same way?
It’s not easy. In fact,
it is impossible without God.
1 John 4:7 says, “for
love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God,” and later
in verse 12, “If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been
perfected in us.”
He is the reason we can
love. “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
So we don’t depend on
whatever strength we can muster up to earn eternal life. We joyfully,
desperately, and assuredly rely on God’s Spirit working in us. Like the father
in Mark 9:24 who said, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” we say, “Lord, I
love. Help me to know how!”
And we walk forward in
faith—studying the Scriptures, praying continually, and engaging the Church. We
walk forward in freedom—reaching out to our neighbors next door and across the
world—all the while trusting God to enable us to love.
At the end of this
passage, Jesus says, “Do this and you will live.” He doesn’t instruct the
lawyer to think about it more. Do it, he says. Do the hard work. Take action.
What will you get in
return? What your heart truly wants—Christ.
Colossians 3:4 says that
Christ is our life.
A wonderful outcome of
loving God and others is that the lover receives life. However hard or costly
the loving is, the reward of knowing Christ deeper and fuller always outweighs
it—and not just by a little. It eternally exceeds any “light affliction” we may
endure (2 Corinthians 4:17).
So expend all that you have to give to the Lord
today. Love without fear. Rely on His power to care for others, and rest in His
bountiful grace when you fall short. Do this and you will live.
Adapted
From: The Good Samaritan - You Version
