July - 8
SIN: A RELATIONAL BARRIER
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Matthew 22:37
“Love, love, love—all you need is love.” That line carries some of us back to a song by the Beatles. But they didn’t create the idea. People have sung about love for eons. God has been talking about it even longer.
Of course, not everyone agrees on what love means or how it works. Romance novels give love an erotic slant, friends tie it to loyalty, and faith groups add religious definitions. As a youth in the 1970s, I recall having had enough of all the love talk; it seemed like mostly chatter and little reality. Life is not easy, and neither is loving.
But love is the issue. It’s the heart of how we are in¬tended to relate to each other and to God. The Bible says that love is hard work, takes sacrifice, and demands that we live out our tough side as well as our sentimental side. Of course, the Bible assumes we want real love, deep love—not just some temporary emotional high.
When we understand that real love is the issue, then we look at sin not merely as a wrong act but as a relational barrier. Sin gets in the way of loving God. Sin changes my ability to connect with God.
When I understand that, I aim to do whatever I can in God’s strength to keep those barriers out of my life. That’s why God gave his commandments, which are not just about me, but about me with God. What I do with those commandments shows how serious my love is.
PRAYER
Lord, at times love sounds so easy, and other times it sounds like a lot of talk. Help me see where I need to be in loving you, and give me the strength to grow in it. In Jesus, Amen.
「爱，爱，爱 —— 你只需要爱。」这句歌词令我们想起披头士唱的一首歌。爱的观念并不是由披头士发起的，自古以来人们已不断歌颂爱，而神比任何人都更早谈到爱。
当然，不是每一个人都同意爱的意义或它如何发挥作用的；爱情小说倾向于描写情欲，朋友把它和忠诚连在一起，而有信仰的人则为爱加上宗教定义。记得在七十年代，年青的我听到太多有关于爱的论调了，他们似乎大多是闲谈，内容也不切实际。生活不容易，而实践爱也同样不容易。
然而，爱的确是问题的关键，爱是我们应如何与人和与神建立关系的重心。圣经说，爱需要努力和牺牲，爱又要求我们不但展露感性的一面，也要展露刚强的一面。当然，圣经假定我们需要的，不是某些短暂的激情，而是真诚和有深度的爱。
明白了真爱是问题的关键后，我们看犯罪不单是做错事，它更是建立关系的障碍。罪妨碍我们爱神，罪影响我们与神的交往。
明白了这件事后，我的目标就是尽我所能，靠神的能力在生活上避免那些障碍。所以神向我们颁布祂的诫命，诫命不是单单关于我，乃是关于我与神的关系。我怎样遵守诫命，显示我的爱有多么认真。
祷告
主啊，有时实践爱听起来容易，有时爱只是高谈阔论。求祢帮助我看到我需要在哪一方面爱，又赐我力量爱更深。奉耶稣之名祈求，阿们。