James 2:8 If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:

Yesterday as I left you I said there is a new sheriff in town. We couldn’t keep the Levitical law because it was too demanding. Now that we are in Christ we have the law of love to keep. Sounds easy, no problem.

Matthew 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

How are you doing so far? If you are still a child in Christ, trying to grow up to be like Jesus, you don’t have the maturity to understand how this is possible. We often carry a lot of baggage with us into Kingdom living. Many of us when we move in want to run out and play. The last thing we think about is unpacking the baggage to examine what we brought with us. Why? The bags are hurts, wounds and pains of that past life we have not dealt with in terms of forgiveness.

We harbor resentments, pick at scabs, perhaps even wear the bruises proudly. “Look what he/she did!” It is difficult if not impossible to become that victorious warrior we should be with a victim’s mentality. Other people’s wrongs weigh on you so heavily that you cannot see your own.

It took me a long time to realize forgiveness of others is necessary to heal me, not them. Sure words of forgiveness will help heal a relationship but finding forgiveness in your heart is the breaking of chains that allow that heart to learn how to love. If you cannot find forgiveness you cannot love with this new heart the Lord has given you.

Romans 5:5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

Leviticus 18:2-4 (ESV)  “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. You shall follow my rules and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the Lord your God.

No, we are not going to have “the talk”. During my post called Graduation I said there are topics that are too sensitive within the administrations of faith for me to address. I will not disparage anyone’s faith. The same might be said of sex. There is no hotter topic of dispute between the world and Christendom that sexual immorality. I will leave “the talk” up to those whom you are subject to in faith matters.

Any time we begin to think about sin there is the tendency to put sexual immorality in the forefront. It is the easiest to judge and God has made His feelings known on the matter. However, at this time, you being yet young in the Lord and it is not my place to have “the talk”, let us read these opening verses of Leviticus 18 within the context of the world.

Nothing in these opening verses are specific in content. God has called you out of the world with all their rules, statutes and social mores. In the world society decides what is moral and what in immoral and that changes like a huge pendulum from being overtly Victorian to being overtly permissive. Seldom does social morality remain in any type of neutral position. Regardless of society’s positional swing, God says do NOT be like the world.

The Levitical Law is out and there is a new sheriff in town. The law of love.