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“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”

John 14:15, LSB

Sadly, many see the Christian faith as a faith centered on rules, but the reality is that our faith is centered on love, particularly God’s love for us and our response to that love. God’s love is not predicated on our following rules. Everything He did through His Son on the Cross was done in response to our lack of love. Sin twists and makes love into a perversion of what God had meant it to be. Because of this, we often find that we are hurt more by those we love than any other person. Jesus does not demand that we be obedient to His commands, but out of our love, He calls us to keep them to protect our relationship with Him. Sin damages all relationships. Sin causes division because it turns all of us in on ourselves and focuses solely on our wants with the exclusion of everyone else. Sin twists and turns our hearts to make us the object of everything and makes us see others only as a means for our use and abuse. In Christ, our hearts are called out and turned toward our neighbor, our spouse, our children, and our Lord. As we live more in the love of our Lord, the more we will see the needs of others and our hearts will yearn to care for them and serve them. In this, we find His peace.

Let us pray. I thank you, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, your dear Son, that you have kept me this night from all harm and danger, and I ask you to protect me this day also from sin and every evil, that in all I do today, I may please you. For into your hands, I commend myself, my body and soul, and all that is mine. Let your holy angel watch over me, that the wicked foe have no power over me. Amen.