Just believe

Let me ask you a question. What is the greatest commandment in the bible? Take a moment to think of a commandment before reading any further. Usually when people are asked this question, nine out of ten people will quote Jesus when He quoted from the book of Deuteronomy 6:4.The verse is known in the Jewish world as the “shema or shama”, which is the Hebrew word for “hear”.  “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

The heart of “Judaism” of the Old Testament was all about showing love for God by keeping all the commandments He gave to Moses. It was all about purifying oneself and keeping right with God by following all His regulations. When someone broke the laws, there were rituals that needed to be completed to the letter. Breaking the commandments required a sacrifice in order to make things right before God. Not being obedient to God would cost you something.

God promised from the beginning, in the garden, that He would be the One to solve our sin problem. He told us that through a virgin He would send the Messiah. Over and over again, all through the pages of the bible, we read how God foretold of the coming Savior. But when the time was finally right and “Immanuel prophecy” was fulfilled, very few people believed Jesus was the promised Messiah.

In the passage of time thousands of years of rituals, sacrifices and keeping the Passover went by. The Jews had even set an empty chair out in the hope that the prophet Elijah would one day return. The prophets cried out for a Savior to be born but when He was, the people were just too rigid to believe in Him!

One day, during the ministry of Jesus, His disciples came to him and asked “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” to which Jesus answered “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.” His disciples must have thought to themselves. “What does He mean? We are good Jews and have kept the law our entire lives! Our fathers ate the manna from heaven. We are children of Abraham; who does he think he is and besides isn’t that Jesus the son of Joseph the carpenter whom we all know?”

After the death and resurrection of Jesus, the early church was plagued with strife between Jewish Christians insisting on tradition through the law, Jewish Christians who wanted to believe only in the grace of God and Gentile Christians who were being pushed and pulled through both sides of this religious quagmire.

Soon religion began growing out of control as the traditions of men began filling the church. Originally, God’s solution to the “sin” problem was to believe in the name of His Son and love one another, but greed, lust and power struggles began to cloud the waters of God’s simple “gift of salvation”.

Soon there were many denominations popping up who all felt like their truth was the only true way to God. Men began to declare war and Crusades in order to cleanse the earth for God. The only problem was that the earth was already cleansed through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. God only wanted a relationship with His creation but misguided men demanded much more from people who wanted to get right with God. Soon men began to speak for God, writing more and more rules and regulations for men to follow. 

Now, we are beginning to see signs for the imminent return of Jesus as God’s Spirit is beginning to shake the scales off of men’s eyes. Many are beginning to read their bibles and trusting in the simple truth of God’s grace through the sacrifice of His own Son.

The apostle John was the oldest surviving writer of scripture whom God allowed the final apostolic word. Incidentally, John was also the first apostle to reach the tomb; he always reclined close to Jesus at the table and was the only apostle at the foot of the cross. Jesus even handed over the care of his own mother to John.

So it was John who wrote the greatest commandment in the bible “And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.” 1 John 3:23. The fire has been kindled, the Spirit is moving as the rushing winds of revival spill out over the whole earth.