He answered, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
LUKE 10:27
If we’re to fulfill our God-given purpose, we need to master the art of simplifying our lives. When Jesus began his ministry here on earth, he brought a message of life, liberty, and simplification to people who were bound by the complexity of overdemanding laws and regulations.
The Jewish law, which originally consisted of the ten simple commandments given to Moses, had evolved into a list of 613 commandments by the time Jesus walked the earth. Can you imagine going through each day trying to obey (let alone remember) 613 laws about every detail of life? There were strict rules about how to clean certain dishes, how to wash your hands, how to eat your food, how to deal in business, how to tithe to God, how to interact in society, and the list goes on. I wouldn’t have been able to make it out my door every morning without breaking at least eighteen of them.
Jesus felt compassion for people who were bound by these unnecessary yokes and burdens of religion because God never intended such complexity for our lives. In fact, in a single exchange with the Pharisees, he whittled down the 613 Mosaic laws to just two. For those of us who struggle with mathematics, let me make this as clear as possible. In three verses of Scripture, 613 laws became two. Now that is simplification at its best!
Are you complicating what should actually be simplified?