The Heart Of The Matter

Matthew 22:37-40 (NIV) Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

While a rookie police officer I had to ride for the first six months with a Training Officer. One night my Training Officer and another decided that they would have a contest. We would see who could give out the most tickets in one evening. (Yes, this is a true story. Yes, Policemen are people too.) Being new to the job and ready to protect and serve the public I thought the night would be filled with dangerous traffic stops where we would be stopping speeders and drunk drivers while making the streets safer for the public. My T/O drove us to a quiet neighborhood in the poverty stricken part of our district and began to slowly drive down the residential street. Suddenly he stopped and said,

“There’s one!”

I looked around for the danger not seeing any other moving cars on the road but he grabbed his ticket book and ordered me out of the squad car. I followed him to an old parked car and watched as he wrote a ticket for expired registration and placed it on the car’s windshield. We spent the next eight hours giving out tickets to cars that were parked too close to the sidewalk, too far from the sidewalk, broken windshields, expired tags, and a variety of other minor infractions. At first I was disappointed that we were being so petty but soon I begin to count the tickets that were piling up and reveled in the thought of “winning” the competition. Thankfully this only happened one night and I was able to actually do police work for the rest of my training. But that night four police officers who could have been serving the community spent far too much time competing against each other and not accomplishing their mission. Christians can do the same thing.

God has called us to fulfill His will. There is a mission field all around us and people are in need of someone to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them. This is their only hope. Death has them in its grip and hell is enlarging its mouth to receive the multitude that are lost in this world but far too often God’s people are busy looking for minor infractions. There are hurting souls, ruined lives, blinded eyes, and dying hearts that need someone to rescue them and until God’s Church rises up in love they will continue to perish. There is no time for pettiness, no time for competition, no time for games, we must be about the Father’s business.

The Pharisees that confronted Jesus were too busy finding the minor infractions of life. They had forgotten the purpose that God had given us the law. Not to condemn but to lift up. God’s didn’t want us to fail, He wants us to succeed and in order to do that we must take hold of each commandment filled with the love of God. The Law of God was written from a heart of love, God’s heart, and to keep those commandments we must respond to them with the same heart. That is why outside of Christ it is impossible to keep the Law.

Many today are striving in their own strength to please God, believing that their labor will somehow endear them to a holy God. They will spend their night in futility trying to attain that which can only be received as a free gift. God’s love is given to each of us freely. When we receive that love and allow it to become the catalyst for every action we can finally begin to walk in understanding, knowing the heart of God.

Oh, for those that need closure, my Training Officer and I lost the competition but to this day I still know what a 4000a CVC violation is.