It's important to know that even as we do our best to follow His commands that we will fail. For the rest of our life we will come short in at least one of the commands. But even in our failings He thoroughly enjoy us! He's not disappointed when we fall short in the process of walking out His commands. The very fact that we are engaging our heart to reach for obedience is a testimony of our love to Him. Pursuing righteousness is not a normal response of the heart. Being poor in spirit is not a natural characteristic that any human is born with. So as we step forward to do our best to walk out His commands, know that just the fact that we are reaching moves His heart!
This has been the picture that has been likened to in my head the last week as I've been thinking about this. A husband that loves His wife should buy his wife flowers. But not out of motivation of duty or obligation. If the husband came home from a long day of work one day and gave his wife a big bouquet of flowers and told her that on the way home from work he felt like he needed to be a good husband and buy her flowers, she might be a little upset and feel like the husband was trying to "buy" her love. Not only that, but that the sole motivation of his buying the flowers came from a heart of obligation and not out of his genuine love for his wife.
But lets say this husband is deeply in love with wife, and on the way home from work his heart is moved as he thinks about his wife, and how much he loves her. He decides out of a demonstration of his love for his wife he wants to stop and pick some wild flowers for her. As he gets out of the car and walks out into the field, he sinks a full 6 inches into deep mud. Now his feet and pants are dirty and caked with mud. Determined to get his wife a beautiful arrangement of flowers he continues to get the flowers he needs. After picking enough flowers to make a bouquet he turns to walk back to his car, but as he turns slips and falls flat on his face in the mud crushing the flowers underneath himself. Finally getting home he walks in the house all muddy and dirty, holding in his hand a pathetic looking wild-flower bouquet. But he looks at his wife and says, "I got you some flowers because I love you." Grinning ear to ear with dirt gritted in his teeth. His wife looks at him and loves him in return despite his fairly beat up self and poor bouquet. What a weak offering, but so sincere. She fully loves her husband and loves that fact that he was thinking of her through the whole process of "trying" to get flowers for her. She sees his love, even though he feel short in walking out the offering part perfectly, the very fact that he was making an effort out of a heart that loves, is so beautiful in her sight.
If we try to walk out the commands of Jesus from a heart that feels obligation of the Christian faith to follow some guidelines, what makes us any different than the man that wanted to buy the flowers for his wife because he had a duty to fulfill? What makes us any different then the pharisees? Jesus spoke forth the commands out of a heart that loved us completely, loved us so much that He desired to give us a picture of what it looks like to love Him in return. Before we had His commands we didn't even know what it looked like to love Him! When we see the commands of Jesus, when we connect with the fact of wanting to walk out His commands because we truly do love Him. Then the feeling of obligation begins to fade away. We walk in obedience from a heart that longs to love Him well. That even in the journey of trying to walk out His commands and falling, like the husband, deep into the mud, He sees the reach of our heart to love Him, and He calls our weak offering real love.
His commands are in no way burdensome when we realize that walking out His commands is loving Him. "but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him, whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked." 1 John 2:5-6
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