Proverbs 22:17-18

Incline your ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply your heart to my knowledge, for it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, if all of them are ready on your lips.

It will be pleasant IF you keep God’s word within you.

IF His word is always on the tip of your tongue.

Some things are conditional. We of course know that God’s love for us is not one of those things. But a life well lived here on earth is conditional upon our ingesting of God and His truth.

Ingesting.

Not striving.

Not rule keeping.

Not a checklist fake spirituality.

But truly assimilating God and His ways into our being, into our way of seeing and living. Then we start to live life as it was meant to be lived. The memorization of Scripture is necessary, powerful, and good not because of the mere accomplishment of it, but because of the fact that it is a sure way to get God’s truth into us. The more we chew on it, the more we will know it and live it. And living it is pleasant.

It’s hard for me to accept that Jesus came to earth, revealing YHWH, doing all He did, suffering all He suffered, so that we could now have the right belief system and know the seven things we should do everyday. It seems to me, and I sure as heaven hope, it is much, much deeper than that!

What is pure awesomeness is the experience of the presence of God in your daily life. Immanuel–>God-as-glad-as-glad-can-get-to-be-with-you, no matter what your circumstances. To be guided by ultimate love, ultimate wisdom, ultimate power, ultimate care. This is what Jesus brought to us. The enablement to live this life very well-in His kingdom, where what He desires done is done.

If reading our Bible or going to church [“going to church” what a silly, non-biblical phrase] does not affect how you live your life, or how you think, or result in peace, then what is the point? The end of it all is union with God thru Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Whatever you or I have experienced, there is so much more. And I believe YHWH wants us to experience more as we follow hard after Him as we are able to handle it.

John 13:35

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

The newness of the new commandment can be understood only in light of the finished work of Jesus. God has always called His people to a life of neighbor love (Lev.19:18), reaffirmed by Jesus as the second great commandment (Matt.22:36-40). But the new commandment presupposes a new paradigm. The greatness of Jesus’ love for us in now the motivation for our loving others. If we love Jesus truly and deeply, we will love what and whom He loves–the unlovely, the oppressed, those very different from us, and those whose actions have damaged us.

This confirming sign of our discipleship is not a badge of our commitment to Jesus; it is rather the beauty of Jesus’ commitment to us. Discipleship is not a program for which we sign up; it is a whole new way of life for which we have been raised up.

-from the Gospel Transformation Bible

This new commandment is washing other people’s feet because you know who you are, where you come from, and where you are going.