The Bible says that the essential nature of God is love. That love is beyond anything human love can accomplish in and of itself.

Human love can love its friends, love its family, even do good things for people it doesn't know. But at the heart of human love is my family, my friends, my good works. Its love is limited to those whom it considers worthy of its love, and in fact human love wants and needs reciprocation, and in many cases when it gets no reciprocation, or even hate in return, it seeks revenge, or at least hates right back (many movies are built around this theme). Human love loves primarily because it wants love. C.S. Lewis said, "What we call love on earth is mostly the craving to be loved."

God's love, his essential nature, is totally other-centered. He gives out love and blessing and life with no need for reciprocation. It is true he wants us to be grateful, thankful, but that's not because he wants to be noticed or needs to feel good for doing good. He is good. His goodness and love have no other reason than he is goodness and he is love. The Bible says that "God justifies the wicked" and "Christ died for the ungodly," and that "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." As he was nailed to the Cross, Jesus Christ was dying for the very people who were cursing, torturing, and killing him. Rather than calling out to God to judge them, he said, "Father, forgive them; they don't know what they're doing." That's the extent of God's love.

So there we have a dilemma. Human love cannot reach to these heights, this pinnacle of loving its enemies. "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." This complete, total love of others is who God is; it is his glory. The Bible speaks of humanity as fallen from this complete, total love of others, and states that humanity cannot love as it should.

And so God gave the Law, beginning with the Ten Commandments. These Laws are an external, written code stating what God's love is like, and how the human is meant to live toward God and others.

As you read through these, ask yourself, "How has my life stacked up to this Law?"

1. Put God first - have no other God but the one true God.
2. No idols - not money, people, fame, job, or anything else that we carve out with our own hands.
3. Don't misrepresent God or take his name as worthless or speak it out flippantly.
4. Remember the Sabbath day (Saturday to the Hebrews - we can talk more about this one later because it is symbolic).
5. Honor your father and mother.
6. Don't murder (Jesus shows this to be a heart matter - hating someone in our heart is as murder).
7. Don't commit adultery (Jesus said lusting sexually in our heart after someone who is not our spouse is the same as adultery).
8. Don't take for yourself anything which belongs to another person (paperclips from work - anything).
9. Don't tell any lies, not even the smallest "white lie" (fudging on taxes - any dishonesty at all).
10. Don't covet what belongs to someone else - home, possessions, wife, husband, etc.

Notice that the first four have to do with our relationship with God, and the last six are about our relationships with other people. Regarding this Law, the New Testament book of James says, "He that stumbles in one point of the Law is guilty of breaking the whole Law." The Law is like a drinking glass; we crack or chip one part of the glass and it is ruined. God's Law, when we look at it honestly, shows that "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." We often have in our minds a sort of idea that God grades on a curve, that if my life can get a C grade my good deeds will outweigh my bad deeds and God will accept me.

But God doesn't work at all on that basis. "Jesus Christ came to save sinners," those who have broken God's Law. God, because he is just, cannot grade on a curve. He is holy; sin cannot be in his presence.

That's the reason for Jesus Christ. What God aims at with each one of us is to put back into us the Spirit that humanity had in the beginning - the Spirit of love-for-others: God himself. The only requirement for getting this Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is simple acceptance of two things: "I have sinned and cannot save myself." And "Jesus Christ died and rose again for my sins." Acceptance of those facts, and simply asking Jesus Christ to enter our heart and be our indwellling Lord and Savior, is the "big bang" of the Christian life. That's where it all begins, with "I have not and cannot keep this Law, and I need a Savior" and on into "Jesus Christ is my Savior."

Religion (in the bad sense of the word) has screwed this all up and turned it into a big "do-this-don't-do-that-quit-doing-anything-you-like-doing" works trip. Think of the words to "Let the Church Roll On" and you'll see what I mean. "There's a woman in the church, got paint on her face, whatcha gonna do? Take a rag and rub it off and let the church roll on..." I used to call that one "Let the jerks roll on..." Sour, self-righteous religious people were the only people group Jesus had harsh words for: "You neither go in yourselves, nor do you let anyone else in." He called them "sons of the devil," "vipers from hell" and other nice names.

But religion isn't what this is all about. Christianity is about a Person, Jesus Christ. He claimed to be the Son of God, God in human form, fully human yet fully divine. And he claimed that somehow his death and resurrection could make us right with God again, that through faith in him we could also become sons of God, expressing that same Light, that same love for those who hate us, having the same power in us that overpowers any addiction, any fear, anything in us which is not-love.