Important

Mark 12:29

Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Jesus said it so it must be true.

But I am not Israel. Then he says in the very next verse to Israel.

Mark 12:30

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

That is a roundabout way of saying “You must love Me O Israel!”

So many times we read the scriptures and take the meaning to be personal, as we should, but in doing so forget who He is talking to and why. Context gets lost when we do that. This interpretation would be meaningless without context. We know God’s Anointed is Jesus Christ, we know He is God incarnate, we know that He and the Father are One, We know He is the Lord but the title “Lord our God” has a different context for Israel than it does for those of us who have given our lives to Jesus Christ.

What “The Lord our God” did for Israel is only symbolic to us Gentiles, for them it was a matter of what the Lord their God did for them as a chosen people. It shows us what God is capable of doing, but what He has done for each of us is different and personal, just as it was different and personal for the nation of Israel.

Jesus came and did signs and wonders for individuals, not a nation. It was lost on the Pharisees and Sadducees because they saw themselves as representatives of a nation and not individuals. There is a greater lesson in those words and I will leave that for each of us to sort out for ourselves. These devotionals are for individuals, not a nation.

We have been talking about lists and how they vary depending on the needs of the hearer. Without making a list, search out your own heart and seek that which is most important to you as an individual in what the Lord Your God has done for you. Then thank Him and Praise Him.

There is no wrong answer if it comes from the heart.

God’s List

1 Corinthians 1:30

And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,

Here Paul provides a list of accomplishments which he considers important. I use the word accomplish because in Christ Jesus we have wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Without Him we have none of it. As with any list, it is incomplete, as He does so much more than these four things.

Perhaps Paul listed these four because having planted this church in Corinth he knew them and understood what they needed to focus on for the moment. Each of his epistles were sent with purpose and it takes all of them to show us how God works in us to accomplish His will.

I consider wisdom as knowing the right thing to say and do to accomplish God’s will.

I consider righteousness as a right standing before God and impossible without Christ.

I consider sanctification as being consecrated unto good works done by Christ in us.

I consider redemption as now belonging in the family of God, back where I belong.

These are all complicated theologies, as are many of the other things God has wrought in us, and the fact that I consider the simplistic meaning for my one personal use does not make what others consider invalid. What works for me might not work for everyone.

This is a personal relationship, my past experiences are personal even if similar to others. What God has wrought in me is personal because He is in me. That is personal.

What we get from the scriptures is what each of us need to become what God needs us to be in order to accomplish His will in the world. That is why there are diversities of gifts, talents and services. None of us are meant to be everything to everyone, only Christ can do that because He is God and able to do all things to accomplish the will of the Father in us.

We do not have to be all things to all people, that’s His accomplishment.

Hebrews 4:3

For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.

Since I consider this to be true, then I cannot change what has already been accomplished.

Relax, enjoy the journey.