i wanted to bring you here to say thank you thanks for choosing me
i wanted to show you how committed i am to you
i'm here for you to support you and love you with all of my heart
you've been with me through so much i love you
you're the best boyfriend i could have ever asked for you pulled me out of my darkest place
and never judged me for my past and i can't wait to spend the rest of my life loving you
the gym does that body good what did you say nothing never mind i was just saying i need to
make sure i get to gym gotta get in some reps today and i'm so happy that we are together
what are you talking to the waiter no yes definitely strange anyway
i was thinking about taking our relationship to the next level
wow you mean a wedding yes oh my gosh honey this is so exciting
are you are you serious what honey honey hold on let me clear this up
section c19 flirting with other guys keeps your relationship
on its toes as long as you don't go past first base your commitment is not in danger
legal implication and first base engagement is within the law according to contract 35
what sections who wrote that nonsense honey don't get snapped section 7 has a good article
on conflict negotiation to sum it up i'm always right anyways this is the exact same manual
used by countless people around the world this is pretty solid stuff hun nobody would ever agree to
anything like that funny because i do remember you're saying you wanted to take me out twice
a week i did say that but how would you i just wrote my own creative commentary on your words
and applied it to the other guys i bumped into on our off days but i kept our day days free for you
isn't that great no it's not a relationship isn't some dumb rulebook it's supposed to be based on
love commitment compassion honey i still stand by it i just defined compassion in my book as
being compassionate to my own desires first i need to take care of myself before i can take
care of you you know i wrote it in last month from a facebook post so deep right okay wow i
think we're done here that reminds me i'm running late to my date with davey you're what honey only
first base come on read the manual it's all there i love you so much we are over susie it's finished
you cannot have me and another man you're so funny one more reason why i love you i get to go wedding
dude did you read her book it's amazing
so how would you react to this situation nobody would put up with that mess but
if this is the standard for us with love why do we think that god would accept less
unfortunately that's exactly what we do to god in many situations our culture has written a law for
the law and if you look around it seems that we are always pushing to the edge of the lines
in relationships we study the love languages how to relate and if you want to be successful in
your relationship you'll make sure to find out what makes your partner happy or sad
angry or joyful and make sure to do your best to serve the others needs if i took the command do
not commit adultery but i kissed and flirted with other women do you think my wife would accept that
but at the same time do we see god's commands but then watch movies that compromise his commands
with lust filthy language and murder and the point is this legalism isn't love and that's why yeshua
said concerning adultery that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed
adultery with her in his heart when you read on the surface of the gospels you will see that
yeshua had many confrontations with the religious leaders of the day they were constantly seeking to
find fault with how his disciples washed their hands paid the temple tax rested on shabbat
and questions on the law concerning marriage atonement and many other things but as we read
the teachers of the law had yeshua all wrong and they had the law wrong too as we study
the laws in the torah we can see an underlying theme we can almost call it a mystery that was
obviously not seen by the teachers and jewish community let's consider the ten commandments
if we were to examine them carefully we would see a clear theme the first four commandments
have a direct action towards god while the remaining six have a direct action towards man
when looking at the ten commandments as a whole we can see that the foundation is all about
relationship our personal relationship with god and how we then relate to others yeshua
summed this up when the pharisees questioned him teacher which is the greatest commandment in the
law yeshua responded you shall love the lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your mind this is the first and greatest commandment and the second is like it you shall
love your neighbor as yourself the entire torah and the prophets hang on these two commandments
we talked about this a bit in the previous episode but it's such a crucial revelation to understand
the whole of the bible and the story of the gospel is one of redemption god redeeming us and even
sending yeshua so that we could enter back into a relationship with him and first samuel is one
example of god's personal relationship with us samuel was grieving because god had rejected
saul as king over israel saul did what many of us do he was given a command but because of pride in
his heart and the fear of man he disobeyed god the telling part was that when he was confronted
instead of humbling himself he justified himself at the end he was more concerned with saving face
than repenting to god and as we read further the tragic story of saul unfolds worse and worse
on the other hand we see when david was anointed as king samuel thought eliab would
be god's choice for king as he was tall handsome and strong but samuel is surprised when god says
do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature because i have rejected him for
god sees not as man sees for man looks at the outward appearance but the lord looks at the heart
the powerful meaning of this story is that god looked at saul's heart and saw a man who was
unwilling to follow and honor god and was not shining the light that we spoke of last week
at the same time god chose david and no one else to replace saul because god looked at the heart of
david and saw a man that despite his mistakes had a heart that sought to honor god the lord desires
our whole heart to serve and love him not just a part of it god may be speaking to you right now
about something you've been holding back something you know is a sin that you need to turn away from
the law is good it teaches us the principles of god but you can obey the law outwardly and
still harbor sin in your heart there is no sure salvation or atonement by the works of the law
salvation is from the grace and love of god in yeshua as followers of yeshua we must allow the
scriptures through the spirit to penetrate the inner part of our heart meaning our thoughts our
desires our actions and our words should glorify god yeshua gives several more examples of how
obedience to the law starts in the heart he reminds us that murder is wrong but hatred
with sin in our heart towards our brother is just as bad as murder the act of adultery is wrong but
when lust has a place to grow and develop in our heart it's just as bad as adultery yeshua reminds
us over and over and over again that the law begins in our heart and when our heart is
obedient to yeshua we are able to honor serve and love god apparently the statement you sure made
about divorce also struck a chord with many of the pharisees later in matthew 19 we read that
the teachers of the law tested yeshua with the issue of divorce hoping that they could catch him
contradicting the law of moses but yeshua brings it back to the heart again as he says that moses
permitted divorce because of the hardness of the hearts of israel but that it wasn't god's design
speaking to that issue the vast majority of divorces today are centered around not
receiving from the relationship what was expected or hoped for it's not just our relationship with
god that is important but our spouse family and friends here you have those practicing religion
seeming to be pious but they traded in their first wife for another in the culture of that
day a divorced wife had no hope to remarry she was shunned from society and reduced to begging
and as she suffers he would offer great loud prayers and lavish offerings to god parading
in the public to be righteous in fact there's no easier way to have god disgusted with you than
to perform commandments and religious acts while hatred lust and rebellion are flooding your heart
god's priority for us is reconciliation and restoration from the heart not just religious
commandments in themselves one scholar put it this way that the rabbis have added fences upon layers
of fences to keep the person from disobeying the least of the 613 commandments but just as putting
a fence around a dangerous animal won't change its nature once he gets the chance he's out the door
and ready to attack again in the same way putting up more fences or commandments on top of the law
won't keep us from sin nurtured in our heart god's desire is to change us from the inside
out a work we can't do ourselves this is why yeshua had to take our punishment as messiah
and die for our sins yeshua's sacrifice brought us freedom from the condemnation of the law
we had no hope of salvation and even in judaism there's no assurance of salvation it's like
strapping a rusty truck to a runner and asking him to run the hundred meter dash we can walk in
joy knowing that yeshua our salvation sets us free from the entanglements and condemnation of the law
and then on top of setting us free of the weight of sin he sent his holy spirit to give us the
strength to stand strong against temptation think of it adam and eve lived in a perfect world their
continued presence in the garden was contingent on the keeping of only a few commandments not 613.
under the best conditions this world has ever seen adam and eve break one of the three laws and die
in exile it is not at all clear how the telling of the story of adam and eve's failure to keep only
a few commandments in a perfect world is supposed to encourage israel to keep 613 commandments in a
broken world full of sin suffering and death actually it offers no encouragement at all
why did god create such a massive number of commandments in the law
why is leviticus so detailed covering almost every aspect of society this was necessary because man's
heart is always set on rebellion against god the apostle paul explains that our mind is
literally at war with god it's not submissive to the law nor can it be god used such detail
because he knew how hard we would try to resist following his ways god provided a perfect standard
of rules and regulations within it even a process of sacrifices to receive atonement
when we fail but what happened the law of moses reveals that we are sinful and disobedient to god
it also shows our weakness to follow his ways and our strength alone if god does
not restore our heart into a relationship with him we will never be able to honor god
yeshua's death and resurrection provides us with the way to heal our heart build a personal
relationship with god and obey his commandments the holy spirit provides us the strength to serve
honor and follow god as he works in our heart the bottom line is the law of god is good
it reveals what's important to god and teaches us aspects of his justice and mercy the scriptures
reveal god's standard our need for atonement and god's plan to heal and save us through his messiah
yeshua made the way for our salvation and transformation for us to be reconciled into
a relationship with god take some time this week to ask god for the strength to follow his commands
from a desire of your heart because you want to demonstrate your love for god's commandments