Rabbi’s Reflections – Saturday, April 2, 2022
Shabbat Shalom,
Growing in Love for God 10
by David Harwood
Can God motivate us to love Him more? He’s the One who gave us the Great Commandment. Won’t He help us fulfill it? The New Covenant promised that He does.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Adonai. I will put My Torah into their mind, and upon their hearts I will write it. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. (Hebrews 8:10 TLV)
As it is written, as it was promised, Adonai will place His Torah in our minds and inscribe His Torah on our hearts. Suppose we had a choice. Suppose you could prioritize a specific divinely given ordinance and say to our God, “Write this one in me, first.” What would you choose?
Surely it would be the greatest command of all. Let’s rehearse it.
Yeshua answered, “The first is, ‘Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. And you shall love Adonai your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ (Mark 12:29-30 TLV)
At Sinai I don’t think Adonai just wrote His words. He carved His commandments on stone tablets.
And he gave to Moses, whenever he had finished speaking to him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of testimony, tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God. (Exodus 31:18 LEH)
Imagine Father reviewing the entirety of all that was in His heart. Suppose He had to single out just one command with which He might seal our hearts. I think He would highlight the Great Command and inscribe it on our souls.
What do you think God would emphasize? It would have to be what Jesus pointed out.
We might protest that this is impossible. It seems like our hearts are harder than the stone He chose to preserve the Ten Commandments. الروليت Yet, Israel received a promise, and the fulfillment of that prophecy is foreshadowed in the New Covenanted communities of believers throughout the nations. Here’s the hope imparted to Israel:
Moreover I will give you a new heart. I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the stony heart from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Ruach within you. Then I will cause you to walk in My laws, so you will keep My rulings and do them. (Ezekiel 36:26–27 TLV)
The foundation of every ordinance is to love Adonai with all we are and have. I’m about to ask some questions. The answer to them is, “Yes.” I’m going to ask them anyway.
Can He engrave the most highly valued command on our hearts? Can He do it without destroying who and what we are? God’s not after automatons. Is He capable of doing this while preserving our capacity to evaluate and freely choose?
Yes, He’s skilled enough, powerful enough, insightful enough, to accomplish this. Also, He created us in such a way that our feely offered love for Him is important to Him. He created us with that in mind. We really are a creation whose love for Him is meaningful to Him. He succeeded. He’s great that way.
What’s amazing to me is that He was willing to pay any price and go to any length to help us truly love Him. To God our hearts’ affections are pearls of great price.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant searching for fine pearls. 46Upon finding a pearl of great value, he went out and sold all that he had and bought it. (Matthew 13:45–46 TLV)
Imagine the Creator finding something He evaluates as so valuable that He sells everything to be able to buy it. Didn’t He do that?
He is still searching for our love. Our affections are the subject of the Greatest Command.
A way He seeks to enliven the Great Command in our hearts is through revealing that the King of Glory created us to be so important to Him that He sought to win our affection. For those with eyes to see, what He reveals about Himself earns our devotion. A triumphant shout in Heaven is that the Lamb is worthy. From Earth we join that chorus. موقع اسغارد
One way He makes our hearts come alive is through revealing His humility. Our next meditation will look a bit more at this with the goal of sparking a bit more awe, a bit more love for Him
Daily Bread, reading plan by Lars Enarson (https://www.thewatchman.org/)
Sat 02-Apr-2022 1st of Nisan, 5782 Parashat Tazria Shabbat HaChodesh
Le 13:55-59 Ex 12:1-20 Ez 45:16-46:18 Col 2:16-23
Nu 28:9-15