Minute Meditations

”One of the automobile companies is now advertising its car by suggesting that we get inside the car for then the car will get inside us. We all know someone who seems always to have a car inside them for that is all they seem to think and talk about.

We know that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh, and the person who is filled with the car is going to talk about it. It isn’t cars however, that should fill us up, but rather, the Truth. We talk about being in the Truth, but the thing we really want is to have the Truth in us. John tells us, ”He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” This means that if the Truth is really in us, then we will keep God’s commands. It doesn’t matter how long we have been ”in the truth,” if we are not keeping God’s commands then the Truth is not in us. Later John tells us ”This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.”

Love is the key to keeping God’s commandments, for if we have enough love, keeping His commands will come automatically. This is why James calls love the ”Royal law” and Jesus explains that on the first two commandments regarding love for God and love for our neighbor hang all the law and the prophets. John’s point regarding keeping God’s commands is that if we love enough they will not be grievous. It is only when we lack love that keeping them seems hard. The children of Israel referred to God’s commands as the ”burden of the Lord.” God replied to them, ”What burden?... Because ye say this word, the burden of the LORD, and I have sent unto you, saying, Ye shall not say, The burden of the LORD; Therefore, behold I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you.”

We have all experienced the difference love makes in doing what might otherwise b: a burdensome task. A young man may complain bitterly about doing his mother’s dishes but finds it a joy to do if asked by the girl he loves. Even the love of money can change a dreary job to one that gives pleasure and satisfaction Give a young person a distasteful job to do with no promise of a reward, then tell him that when he has finished he can have ten dollars and the job suddenly becomes easier and gets done much faster.

It is love that makes all the difference. The keeping of God’s commands becomes easier in direct proportion to our love for Him. This is why we want not only to be in the Truth but to have the Truth in us to the degree that keeping His commands is actually what we want to do.

This was true of Jesus. He so loved His Father that he said ”My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” So great was his love that it strengthened and sustained him even as natural meat does the natural man. Certainly when we eat meat, we take it inside us. When our love for God increases to the point that it is also our meat to do His will, it will not be a burden, it will not be grievous, but a joy and a pleasure. David exclaimed ”O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day.”

When this happens, then truly the truth will be in us and it will be noticeable to everyone who knows us. The love of God will transform us and Paul tells us this is done by the renewing of our minds. If we fill our minds with things like cars then it will b a car that is inside us just like the commercial suggests, but if we fill our minds with the things of God, then He will be in us. Jesus tells us, ”At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”