The LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy…Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.'” (Leviticus 19:1-2, 18, NIV).
Discipleship starts with illumination (loving God) and assumes incarnation (showing that love by loving others).
Who you love and what you love has a huge impact on how you look, how you dress, what you like, and what you don’t. If you don’t believe me just go to a Patriots game. You will see most people are dressed like this:
If you really love the Patriots you take it one step further:
And if your life is about the Patriots you end up going to the game like this:
Who does this person love?
Now, this guy really loves Batman. But we know he is not the Batman. Why? Take out…Batman doesn’t do take out!
Love always moves to incarnation.
The Patriots fans and the guy in the Batman costume want you to see them and see what they love. They prove their love by dressing themselves up as who they love. But that is where it stops. The guy wearing Tom Brady’s #12 jersey can dress up like Tom Brady, but he is not trying to be Tom Brady. He is not a quarterback, let alone a professional football player. He just loves Tom Brady and wants you to know it. The guy in the Batman costume has no intention of being Batman, he just wants to look like him. He loves Batman and wants you to know it.
Both of these people are not really interested in getting you to love what they love. They just want you to see what they love. In that sense it is a private love. It is really all about them.
Jesus is looking for a much bigger incarnation. He has given His disciples His own Spirit so that they have His heart. If you have taken Jesus as your savior, then you have His Spirit and that means you have His heart. That means you are going to be more and more caring about what He cares about, caring for who He cares for, have compassion when He would have compassion, it means that what is in His heart is growing in your own.
The incarnation of divine love in the Christian should be just as obvious as these. But the Tom Brady fan is going to go home and take off his jersey and put it away until the next game. The guy doing Batman cosplay is going to go home and take off his costume and put it back in his closet (or return it to the store he rented it from) until the next comic convention. The Christian’s incarnation is not something that is put on and taken off. Rather Paul tells us in Colossians 3:12-17 (NIV),
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Remember, there is a difference between a suit and a costume. A costume is for dressing up as something you are not. Discipleship is not a costume the Christian wears for certain occasions but is really who they are.
We are holy.
We are the Father’s sons and daughters.
We are dearly loved (Colossians 3:12).
And since that is who we are, we should be who we are. We are holy because God is holy and He has made us His own in Christ, and that holiness is going to show in loving our neighbor as ourselves. The Christian who does not love his neighbor as himself, shows himself to only be in a costume of Christianity no matter how accurate and detailed the costume may be. Christian discipleship is not about outward appearance or performance but about love.
That is important because I think we are sometimes more concerned about meeting the expectations and opinions of others than we are about incarnating Jesus’ love by loving our neighbor as ourselves. Or to put it another way, one of the common traps that Christians fall into is incarnating religion instead of love.
The reality is that a person can have perfect church attendance, memorize and recite Leviticus, read their Bible every morning, give 20% of their gross income to the church, serve on a committee, never rob, steal or defraud anyone at work, and pray 10 times a day, and be no better off than the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable who said, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get (Luke 18:11-12, NIV).
All those things are good things, but they are only window dressing compared to love. What he was missing was love for his neighbor, love for the tax collector who was standing nearby. Not only did he distance himself from him, but he thanked God he was not like him.
He didn’t realize that God did not see it that way. One needed grace as much as the other. And if the Pharisee really did love God, he would have taken notice of the tax collector. He would have gone over to him and prayed with him. He would have put himself out for him, befriended him, and helped him anyway he could. Because he would have seen that tax collector not as a criminal or a traitor, or even a “sinner” but as a person who he needed to love as he loved himself. Since that was missing, his profession of love and obedience to God was shown to only be a profession. It was only a costume, window dressing without a window.
God says be holy because I am holy (Leviticus 19:2).
We do that by loving our neighbors as ourselves (Leviticus 19:18).
Because love for God always leads to loving others (Matthew 22:36-40).
Illumination assumes incarnation.
Learning To Be Full Of Grace And Truth. 