all the law and the prophets holiness, part four

Blogging from Kid's Camp at Ridgecrest Conference Center, North Carolina. Can't post though, until later. Imagine spending a couple of weeks dealing with holiness and the law and grace, staying up late into the night to get thoughts down before leaving for camp with 3rd and 4th graders, and then arriving at camp to find that the theme for the week is the next step in the ongoing dealings with this subject. Was I ever primed to teach and learn with these kids.

So I can be holy. Following God's law is required to make me holy. The law has made my sin evident to me. But despite my knowledge of it, and my sincere desire to follow it and be holy, I just can't do it. No matter how bad I want it and how hard I try, I break the law. I'm doomed. But Jesus comes to fulfill the law. In other words, He keeps the law for me. He follows the law to a T, and then receives the punishment spelled out for not following it, in my place. That is law fulfilled. I'm made holy.
So what does a holy person do? We know what he doesn’t do, read Leviticus. But wait, that doesn't make sense – the scripture says that I can't follow the law, but Jesus in me fulfills the law, so my holiness can't possibly be evidenced by what I don't do. So it must be what I do that evidences my holiness. Better find out what it is. Maybe I can keep part of the law, maybe just the most important part.
Hey Jesus, what is the most important commandment? Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. The next is to love your neighbor as you love yourself. ALL God's law and prophets hangs on these.
There is a profound relationship between these two commands. These two things that evidence holiness. Maybe they do more than evidence holiness, I'm thinking maybe they are the ONLY thing that can make someone holy. I don't know. But I do know this. Jesus said that if we love Him, we will obey His commands. God gave us the law so that we could be holy. And all the law hangs on two commands. So it seems that our response to Jesus fulfilling the law for us must be that we follow these two commands. The profundity comes in that we CAN'T obey the most important command without also obeying the second most important command. That is why they are presented almost as if they are one command. Failure to obey the second, proves that we don't obey the first. John tells us that if we say we love God, but we don't love people, then we are liars. Actually, the whole deal is explained right there in John, chapter 4, but that's not the only place these things are found. God loved us, so we love Him back. IF we love Him, we love people. If we don't love people, we don't love Him.
So if our love for God is shown in obedience, and He commands us to love people, then to obey Him (his most important command) is to love people. Failure to do so, proves that we don't love Him.
Where then do we get the idea that being holy – set apart – means spewing venom toward and avoiding people, when in fact, being set apart means embracing and loving those people. Why do we call ourselves Jesus followers and intentionally do the opposite of what He commands? How can we follow by going in the opposite direction? Why do we think we are clean by avoiding dirty people, when in fact, our cleanliness is accomplished by loving dirty people?
Yep, Jesus is a weird one. And He only ever said what His Father told Him to, so the Father must be a weird One too. The Holy Spirit works in us to accomplish this non-sense, so He must be a weird One too.
Man I want to be a weird one.