”...[I am commanding] you to keep the commandment spotless [and] blameless until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ...”
-A serious charge, a sober command to keep the command, the commandment. Just one, you ask? We’re technically looking at at least two, since this is also a command. Not to mention, Paul has just dropped a busload of commands in these last few verses alone - flee all those bad things, pursue these good things, fight the good fight, take hold of eternal life. Obviously, Paul’s vision is that of a unified whole. Our is not a massive hodgepodge of disparate commands, a jumbled assortment of divine imperatives. Nope - it all actually does boil down to one command. Just one. Love the Lord with all your heart. One Lord, one love, one heart. It all goes back to Him. It’s all about Him. We were created and designed to bear His image, to be like Him, to show off His breathtaking goodness, to celebrate that and to increase the celebration of His goodness to the ends of the earth. In all that we do, whatever we do, we do this one thing - we love Him. We glorify Him by loving Him fully and unreservedly. We show off His goodness by enjoying and spreading the knowledge of His goodness.
-And we do this without spot or blame. We endeavor to do this in such a way that inasmuch as our Savior has clothed us in His white robes of righteousness that there is not even one spot of dirt, not even a single stain anywhere to be seen. Not even a single thing which anyone could say against us - apart from our devotion to our Savior. It’s like Daniel - the only thing his would-be detractors could find against him was in relation to his relationship with God [Daniel 6.5]. Spotless. Blameless. But not perfection, this. We are not talking about some rosy-eyed delusion of being perfect in everything we do or say. Chasing some phantom of religious performance which is nothing more than an exhausting pipedream. Nope. Nobody is perfect. Not this side of heaven. But we can do two things as we pursue the One Thing - we can always (according to His power which mightily works within us) strive to do it right, and when we mess up (not if, but when), we can own it and make it right. A walk of honesty and humility. We’re not better than anyone else, we’re not perfect - but our Savior is, and by golly and by His grace and power we wanna be like Him. We’re gonna give it our all. Bar set high, aiming high, running to win, the best race we know how. And when we fall, when we try and don’t succeed, we will try try again. Until He comes again. Until He appears (He is coming back!). Until the end, in other words. We will finish. Finish! Finish the race! We will keep on running to win...
-But Jesus IS coming back as Lord - next verse...!
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