Commandments for Abundant Life (Part 3): We Only Find What We are Looking For

If I believe that the Bible is the Word of God, then it should be an undeniable, unarguable fact that contained within the Gospels are divine commandments.  All I have to do is look for anything that Jesus commanded me to be, to do, or not do.  The question is, how do I make sense of these commandments and “put them into practice”?

It is a well known psychological fact that we human beings tend to only find what we are looking for -- that is what confirms our pre-existing beliefs about the subject.  It even happens to trained scientists.  It is called “confirmation bias” which is our tendency to seek and interpret information that confirms our current beliefs and to avoid or rationalize-away information or interpretations which contradict our current beliefs.  Therefore we would be wise to be cautious with a subject so important as the Commandments of Christ, for left to our own devices, we will automatically tend to either dismiss them as not applying to us or interpret them in a way that doesn’t require us to “put them into practice”.

What should we be looking for in the Commandments of Christ?  This is an important question, for how likely are we to find what Jesus intended to give us, if we are looking for something different than what Jesus intended?  Now what do we human beings tend to look for?  Do we tend to look for “assurances” of salvation, assurances that we are fine just the way we are, or do we tend to look for ways that we need to change?  If we are honest, the answer is obvious, we tend to look for the assurances because we don’t like change, in fact we hate change.

But how do we know what Jesus intended to provide in his commandments?  If we examine the “new” commandment to love one another as Jesus loves us, maybe we can find the answer.  This new commandment says that we should love our neighbor as Jesus has loved us.  Notice that there are two parts to this commandment.  The first part is that we “love one another”.  The second part is that we love one another in a very specific way: “…as I (Jesus) have loved you”.  But how can we love our neighbor as Jesus has loved us for we are only capable of shallow human love, while Jesus’ love is complete and unconditional?  There is only one way, and that is for us to change and to become more like Jesus.  To become more like Jesus means that our ability to love must change from the mortal, conditional love that we are familiar with, to divine, unconditional love, like the love of Jesus.