Embracing God’s Commandments Without Burden
By Dean Collins
Recently, I was asked to serve on several nonprofit boards. Having announced my retirement date for next summer, I assume some expect me to have some free time on my hands. For now, I have resisted saying yes for a couple reasons:
1.) My closest advisors have warned me to not get over-scheduled in too quickly or at all.
2.) I am praying about what God wants me to do in the next season.
But if I had a third reason, I might borrow a phrase from 1 John 5:1. These two words caught my eyes today: “not burdensome.” The full verse says this: “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.”
Most people I know, whether working a job or even those who are retired, tell me that they have no idea how their calendars got so full. I suspect that the answer is either someone else is running their lives and filling their schedule, or, more likely, they have simply not been able to say no when asked to do something. And if we are not careful, our schedule, even if filled with lots of good things, can in fact become burdensome to manage.
John’s assertion is worth pondering. The apostle has stated that the love of God is to keep his commandments and that the commandments are not burdensome.
I suspect you might have a little pushback to keeping commandments as not being burdensome. If you google how many commandments there are in the Bible, you will quickly find several sources that say there are 613 commandments in the Old Testament. Keeping up with 613 laws sounds like a lot of work.
Some of those commandments or laws had to do with specific situations at specific times and are no longer relevant to us. The Ten Commandments are certainly less burdensome than keeping up with 613! A Pharisee asked Jesus a question one day: “Which of the commandments is the greatest?” Jesus answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” The answer Jesus gave silenced the crowd. Maybe they were considering that loving God and loving your neighbor is a whole lot less burdensome than trying to keep a ledger on all the things they were to do and not do.
Maybe if you are an auditor, you won’t agree with my next thought. Compliance is burdensome. Trying to focus on all the things we can and can’t do will wear you out. To “keep” the commandments has the suggestion of “value” in the original language. I keep my commitment to my marriage and to my wife because I value her and our relationship. I don’t keep my commitment out of a sense of obligation. To love my wife is not burdensome.
It is clear all throughout scripture that God loves us and all his creation not out of a sense of obligation but rather because he values us and desires to be in us and with us, both now and forever. All five chapters of 1 John, along with the gospels, teach us that the way the world will know that Jesus is from God will be because his children love each other the way he loves us. And John tells us in the third chapter that when we love each other we will experience full joy. To keep God’s commandments that are summarized by how we love is indeed not burdensome!
Father, today we rejoice that you love us and that you have called us to love others. May we demonstrate our love to you today by keeping your commandments to love everyone the same way that Jesus loves us. Release us from our burdens and fill us with your joy as we obey your commands today. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Your Time with God’s Word
1 John 5:1-5; Matthew 22:34-38, 40 ESV
Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash
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