No 7 in the series on The Bible book of Ephesians

It is not easy to live a Christian life. There are so many laws of God in the Bible and it does seem a bit confusing. However, Campbell helps us to navigate an understanding of what God wants from us, and it stems from the first of the Ten Commandments – “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). But the emphasis was placed by Jesus when he said that the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37). But unfortunately none of us can comply even with this alone, no matter how hard we try. So the important thing to note is that Jesus has done all for us when he took all our sins and was sacrificed for us on the cross. This is God’s great abiding love for each of us, but if we do not accept him into our lives, then not only do we miss out on the great ever-present counsellor, the Spirit of God, but we are actually rejecting God – no acceptance means rejection. These consequences are devastating to us because the evil that we do (and we all do sin) cannot be forgiven by God if we have not turned to him. So he will then ultimately have to say “I never knew you“‘ (Matthew 7:23) and reject us because we have rejected him.

In reality, we can only have the strength to live a Christian life if we repent and rely on the Holy Spirit of God to show us the way. The Bible reminds us to ‘love the Lord your God’ at least 40 times in over 16 books of the Bible, but in actual fact, this requirement is spread throughout the whole Bible – which is the inspired word of God to us.