TOO MUCH...WHICH TRUTH? by Tony Manley

“How hard is it to trust someone?  With a 1 being very easy and 10 being extremely hard.”

“What would it take to put my heart out there with complete abandonment to others?”

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” Deut. 6:5

God is trustworthy. God is worthy of all my trust.

Week two of Deuteronomy Bible study…too much. I think if there were nothing else or no one else in this world or day to attend to, I could handle all God wants me to grasp about Him, His heart, and His ways. 

As a teacher, I am the type I want all of your attention because I believe what I am presenting is of utmost importance to your learning and because I know how the information is going to be useful in your life. I want my students to have all the tools they need to be successful and confident in the moments now and to come!

So, when the questions about trusting and putting my heart out there were thrown out and then the verse about loving God with my all, I was stirred up. I don’t have a very good history with trusting and loving people well. For whatever reason, trusting and loving God is a different story. I do trust Him and do love Him, but when the truth of loving people reflects my love for Him, I can get frustrated. I almost get the feeling I am being forced to do something against my better judgment…uh, oh, I just typed out a truth…loving people like God loves people IS against my better judgment. Key words - MY BETTER JUDGMENT. My better judgment is birthed from a sin nature. God’s better judgment is from a pure, holy, and just nature full of love, grace, and forgiveness.

I said in the beginning of this rambling that there was “too much” and “which truth” during Monday night’s teaching, so...what do I need to embrace/focus on to bring clarity of vision? (I don’t multitask as well anymore…one truth at a time, please! ☺)
In the spirit of persevering, I dissected the article written about the lesson by Melissa in the study guide (A God So Near).  I substituted my name (insert your own name) for Israel’s name in the major points from the text. Narrowing down all the information seems to help me “see” more clearly (regain my vision).

Place your name in all the blanks: 

___________'s keeping and performing the commandments is a matter of life and death to my heart and walk with Christ. 

God’s nearness to __________ makes me unique and exceptional in and to the world.

____________'s obedience to and keeping of God’s commands is the way God is known and found in community.

The way I live – faithfully or unfaithfully as a daughter and co-heir with Christ, will draw conclusions and questions from the world about God.

To bring all of this to a summation, God is worthy and trustworthy enough for me to not only love Him completely, but to love others with His love. Risky? Yes! Possible? Yes! Easy? No! But “We love because He first loved us.”  1 John 4:19.  This is the truth I must embrace.