The New Commandment

Part 1 of a 5 part series - John Marx

Most people, Christians and non-Christians alike, are familiar with the Ten Commandments. But in over 40 years of ministry, I’ve heard little emphasis given to the Scripture that is given to the church for today: The fact that through Jesus Christ, we have a new commandment.

In John 13:34, Jesus says, “A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples if you love one another.” (NIV)

In Matthew 22:36-40, (a lawyer asked Jesus) “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law? And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (NIV)

In Romans 13:9-10, the Apostle Paul says, “The commandments … are summed up in this one command: Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.” (NIV)

Reflection on the new commandment:

NOTE: I don’t want you to confuse showing our love for God, and God showing His love for us. In the Law, in the Old Testament, many of the laws were created by man using his ideas to bring himself into right standing with God. This is impossible. We cannot put ourselves in right standing with God. Only by His love for us, demonstrated by His sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ, to be atonement for our sins, our willingness to realize that we are all sinners who need a Savior, and our willingness to accept Christ as God’s Son and His sacrifice for us, can we come into relationship with God. I will be talking more about this in future blogs.

I reflect on how God expects us to show our love for Him and for our neighbor. One of the best examples we have of us showing our love for God, by loving our neighbor, is the story of the Good Samaritan.

Luke 10:25-37: “And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ And He said to him, ‘What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?’ And he (the lawyer) answered and said, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.’ And He said to him, ‘You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.’

But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ Jesus replied and said, ‘A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went off leaving him half dead. And by chance a certain priest was going down on that road and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise, a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him and when he saw him, he felt compassion, and came to him, and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return, I will repay you.’ ‘Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?’ And he said, ‘The one who showed mercy toward him.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.” (NIV)

Sometimes we can put ourselves in the position of the man who was beaten and robbed. When we are the most hurting, God can use the most unlikely person to touch us with His love. The Good Samaritan story shows how God can reach into our lives and provide for our every need. Ex. Food, housing, drink, comfort, and provision for the future were all provided. Although the religious, who can represent all those you think will help you in your time of need (family, friends, authority figures), all stepped around him, God used a person who came from a group considered, at that time, to be the least of people, the Samaritan, to help the man who had been robbed.

He can do that in each of our lives too. He just needs people who are willing to do what the Samaritan did – reach out to someone in need. If you don’t already practice this kind of love for your neighbor (this includes family, friends, and co-workers), will you ask God to help you become that person who can reach out to others with care and compassion?

Scripture tells us to encourage each other. I will continue to share more of what I have learned through the years, in the hope that it will be a help to my friends. I always encourage communication and would welcome the reader to share his/her thoughts on this blog.

You Are Closer Than You Think by John Marx 2018

If we are away from God or don’t know God, we might think that our bad habits would keep us from drawing close or approaching Him. Scripture tells us that if we draw close to God, He will draw close to us. But sometimes we do feel that we cannot draw close to God because of our habits and desires, because they would not be pleasing to Him.

With our human mind, it is hard to imagine the height and the depth of the universe, which is often beyond our imagination. But when it come to the love of God, understanding the extent of the universe would not even be a beginning of understanding how much God loves us. It is impossible to really grasp how much He loves us.

God instructs us regarding some of the things we do that we don’t feel really good about. Why does He point these things out in Scripture? It is not that He does not want us to have a good time. And sometimes we feel as if these things are just that – a good time. He warns us because the presence of sin cannot be in God’s presence. God and sin cannot be at the same place at the same time, and He wants you to be close to Him. So He instructs you not to do the things that will keep you away from Him. He may put it in your conscience, or you may not feel quite right about doing something.

Although He wants to remove the things that are not pleasing to Him from your life, He wants you to know that you can approach Him even with some of the habits that you believe are displeasing to God. You can approach Him through Jesus Christ. He will help you to get past, get over, or get rid of some of the things that are hindering your relationship with God. This is the greatest desire of God’s heart – for you to draw close to Him and for Him to be close to you. Fellowship with you is His greatest desire.

Since He cannot fellowship with sin, God makes you aware of what will keep you from a close relationship with Him. When I think of what God has done for us, I am reminded of the old saying “This is going to hurt me more than it will hurt you.” He wants so much to be close to you that He gave up His only Son to be a sacrifice for our sins. When we come to the end of ourselves and realize that we, like all humans, are sinners who need a savior, we can take advantage of the offer God has given us. We can trust what God has promised in His word. We can repent of our sins and ask Jesus to be our Savior, so that we can have fellowship with God for eternity.

Romans 10:13 "For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (NIV) And again in Acts 2:21 "And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (NIV)

Romans 10: 9-11 "if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For with your heart you believe and are justified, and with your mouth you confess and are saved.

11It is just as the Scripture says: “Anyone who believes in Him will never be put to shame.” 12For there is no difference between Jew and Greek: The same Lord is Lord of all, and gives richly to all who call on Him, 13for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

There is a famous song whose lyrics reflect the fact that you can come to Jesus just as you are. It is called "Just as I am." The original lyrics were written by Charlotte Elliot in 1835. You can listen to the version sung by Allen Jackson by clicking on the link below. May God bless you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9oSB3elWY4

Receiving the Gift of Reading

John’s Personal Testimony - 2014

I grew up with my mother in a home of divorce and an alcoholic stepfather. I had an older brother. I also had a younger sister, who drowned in a drainage ditch when she was about 22 months old. The death of my sister was devastating to me because I was about eighteen months older than she was and we were always together.

When I was a pre-teen, my mother remarried a third time and had two children, so I also have another brother and sister who are younger than me. Growing up, I was pretty much a loner. I loved to go exploring in the woods with my dog in Sarasota and the Fort Myers area. Much of my time with relatives was spent with my uncle, aunt, and grandparents.

Starting school was a terrifying experience for me. I longed to be in the woods. No one talked to me about school or helped prepare me for it. All I remember is my mother dragging me across the parking lot to the entrance of the school. I was never taught to read. I was passed from one grade to the next without ever completing an assignment. As the years went on, I was the student who served milk in the lunchroom, cleaned the trash from the playground, or helped the custodian in some way.

I stopped going to school when I was in 7th grade. I would walk in the front door and out the back. I had started to get into trouble and into fights. My parents believed that I was incorrigible and at 14 years old, I was sent to the Okeechobee School for Boys. I’ll save that story and the following troubles for another time. Suffice it to say, that I was always getting into trouble or a fight of some kind.

The years went on. I never let anyone know that I could not read. I worked in stucco, pressure cleaning, carpentry, and painting. When I was approximately 30 years old, I was in a bar in which I frequently fought. I was there for lunch with my boss. As I was sitting at the bar, I heard a loud voice behind me say to me, “Read the Bible!” I immediately whipped around ready to punch someone, but no one was there. I went home that evening; I shared the story with my girlfriend, and we had a good laugh about it.

One day, not knowing that I couldn’t read, my girlfriend brought home a large print Bible for me to read. I put it on my desk. Since I came home from work before she did, every afternoon I would sit at my desk and stare at the Bible. Each day, I had a greater desire to read what was in that book. One afternoon, my desire to read it peaked and I opened the book. To my surprise and amazement, I could read every word!

It was as if the words jumped out at me! Just like a child, I believed everything I read. A friend then invited me to his church even though he ever knew about my experience with the Bible. I went to the church of 11 people and God really touched me. One Sunday, I felt compelled to go to the altar to tell God how much I loved Him. As I raised my hands, eyes closed, expressing my love for Him, I could feel a vat of warm oil being poured over me. The more I praised and kept my hands raised, the more the oil poured. I don’t know how long I was there, but afterwards people told me of several miracles that had occurred during that time. One example was that the preacher, who had bad knees, was skipping across the tops of the pews, knees healed. The Bible says to go out and share the Good News. So, I went out to the neighborhood, which at that time was the crack capital of the U.S. Within one year, over 100 people were attending the church.

This testimony was written when John was 69 years old. He studied the Bible extensively for over 30 years. He said that he was always amazed that after studying for so many years, he was always learning something new. He attended the Christian Retreat School of Ministry from which he received his pastoral credentials with the Gospel Crusade Ministerial Fellowship. Through the years of study, he realized that the bottom line of Christianity is love. Jesus said, in Matthew 22:34-36, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments." And in John 13:34-35, Jesus said, "A new command I give you. Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John embraced Jesus' words and spent his life sharing the love of God, through Jesus Christ. He dedicated his life to loving others as Christ loves us.

Because of his life experiences, John could have lived a life full of anger, bitterness, and unforgiveness. Instead, John chose to invite Jesus Christ into his life as his Lord and Savior. John chose to study the Bible and learn about what would be pleasing to the Lord and then live his life accordingly. As a result, he lived with the Peace of God filling his life and the love of God flowing through him to everyone he met.

God loves us more than we can ever imagine and all He wants in return is for us to show our love for Him by wanting to have a relationship with Him. We can do that by realizing that we are all sinners, accepting His Son, Jesus Christ as our Savior who paid the price to redeem us from our sins, and turning away from the ways of the world and to Him for guidance, direction, love, protection, and provision. God created Adam and Eve to fellowship with Him, to walk in the garden with Him in the cool of the evening; to be happy and at peace, with all their needs met. What is different now? Nothing. God is still the same. He still wants a personal relationship with you. On John’s pages, I will be sharing more of what he learned through the years. May his writings be an encouragement to you.