PASTOR’S CORNER, Rusty Husted, First United Methodist Church, Liberal

My Sabbath is on Fridays. Since I am a pastor and my Sundays are busy, I try my best to practice my Sabbath on Fridays. I usually don’t answer my phone or look at emails or do any “church” business. Of course, like all things I struggle doing this, but if it were a normal Sabbath I would watch a worship service online. I try to attend an online service on Fridays along with my wife, who is also a pastor, so we worship together on Fridays.

This article is not about Sabbath, although I could write a lot on that topic. I want to talk about the Law or better the Commandments.

One of my Sabbaths, I watched a sermon where the pastor compared the Commandments given to Israel as ‘guard rails.’ In other words, the Commandments guard our relationship with God and others. As the pastor put it, “the Commandments show us our boundaries.” In one sense this is true. Paul says in Romans 7, “What then should we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.” A lot of people need the law in their lives for this very reason. The Commandments are needed to show us where we cross the line in our relationships with God and with neighbor. However, for me the Law/Commandments show me a much deeper truth.

No greater Psalm was written about the Commandments than Psalm 119. Psalm 119 starts this way, “Happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD. Happy are those who keep his decrees, who seek him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong but walk in his ways. You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently. O that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes! Then I shall not be put to shame, having my eyes fixed on all your commandments. I will praise you with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous ordinances. I will observe your statutes; do not utterly forsake me.”

For the Psalmist the Law/Commandments are not guard rails but show us a fulfilling and happy life. This speaks to a deep calling in our lives to live as we were created to live. In the beginning we were created as the Image of God. This means that when creation looks at humanity, they are to see God. Therefore, the Commandments do not give us a list of “do’s and don’ts,” but they describe how we were created. When we follow and live by the Commandments of God, we are living as we were first created. The Commandments are a description of who we are created to be. So, the closer we follow the Commandments the more “human” we are.

When Christians think about the Law/Commandments, we take the words of Jesus to heart. Matthew 22 has Jesus being questioned by the Pharisees, “…A lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ Jesus 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 greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” For Jesus the Law/Commandments are all about loving God and Neighbor. For Jesus this is what it means to be human; to love as He loves.

When we live as humans, as the Image of God, we are truly happy and we find that peace and joy that comes from God. A lot of people see Christianity as a set of rules to follow and when we don’t follow them then God is angry and punishes us. The punishment is not from God but is a self-punishment because we are living as something that God did not create; we are further from who we truly are. When we do not live as God created us, we find ourselves depressed and lonely because we are going against our very nature. The sad reality is that we look for things outside of God to find that sense of joy and peace and we display this sadness in self-destruction.

What God calls us to is not to follow the rules or else, but He calls us to a life of fulfillment. Christ gives us a new way of life through the power of the Holy Spirit so that we can find that peace and joy. Our desires should be for this way of life. As the Psalmist states, “Happy are those who keep His decrees, who seek Him with their whole heart.” The Commandments of God should be how we seek God with our whole heart. We should have a passion to seek God and follow His ways. Not out of fear, but out of wanting to be who God created us to be, which is love.