Simple Commands

As we work to become a simple church, one that focuses on a single purpose-to share the Good News of God’s love and forgiveness with the whole world-we ought to consider the simple nature of our relationship with God. While the church is a body with a corporate purpose and goals, it is made up of individuals who have individual relationships with God. And God explains the core of that relationship in two simple commands.

“On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ ‘What is written in the Law?’ he replied. ‘How do you read it?’ He answered: ‘”Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind”; and, “Love your neighbor as yourself”‘ ‘You have answered correctly,’ Jesus replied. ‘Do this and you will live'” (Luke 10:25-28, NIV). The simple answer to the simple question “what must I do to be saved” is to love God and love people.

Obviously the simple answer will prompt further questions. Our job as the church is to answer those questions in the process of discipleship, helping individuals to connect to God and to other people, to grow in their faith and knowledge of Jesus, and to serve the world following Jesus’ example.

As we start to answer the simple question from the world that is asking it, we will find people who do not know how to love God. We need to model it, as we worship together. We need to teach it through our classes, to children through adults. We need to live it in our families and demonstrate it in our service. We need to share God’s love by leading people to his forgiveness, through the process of repentance to the point of acceptance in baptism and beyond, into a life of continued growth and service. When we begin to see the simplicity of God’s plan to restore a relationship with individuals, we can begin to work together.