At present, we are working with the light of truth presented by Dr. Francis Schaeffer from his book True Spirituality.  

Part 4

Exodus 20: 1-17   

Matthew 22: 34-39 (The Law of Love)But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again.  One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question:  “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” Jesus replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.  A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” 

1. The true Christian life, true spirituality, does not just mean that we have been born again. It must begin there, but it means much more than that. It does not mean only that we are going to be in heaven. It does mean that, but it means much more than that. The true Christian life, true spirituality in the present life, means more than being justified and knowing that I am going to heaven.  

2. It is not just a desire to get rid of taboos in order to live an easier and a looser life. Our desire must be for a deeper life. And when I begin to think of this, the Bible presents to me the whole of the Ten Commandments and the whole of the Law of Love.  

3. True spirituality, the true Christian life, is not just outward, but it is inward—it is not to covet against God and men.  

4. But it is even more than this: it is positive—positive in inward reality, and then positive in outward results. The inward thing is to be positive and not just negative; and then sweeping out of the inward positive reality, there is to be a positive manifestation externally. It is not just that we are dead to certain things, but we are to love God, we are to be alive to him, we are to be in communion with him, in this present moment of history. And we are to love men, to be alive to men as men, and to be in communication on a true personal level with men, in this present moment of history. 

As Christians we say we live in a personal universe, in the sense that it was created by a personal God. Now that we have accepted Christ as our Savior, God the Father is our Father. When we say we live in a personal universe and God the Father is our Father, to the extent that we have less than a trusting attitude, to the extent that we are not ‘giving thanks’ and demonstrating our dependence on Him moment by moment, we are denying what we say we believe. We say that, as Christians, we have by choice taken the place of creatures before the Creator, but if we are not loving Him above all things, if we are not loving our fellow man as we love ourselves, we are exhibiting that at that moment, in practice, we have not really so chosen.   

True spirituality, the essence of the Christian life, is to love God with our ‘all’…so that we can adequately love others…and be the love of Christ to the world that is in darkness around us.   

(I, dh, do not want to provide the content of the above post as to presenting that I have arrived, or achieved loving God, or loving my fellow man as Christ would ask me to love.  I have not, nearly, accomplished this as is possible for us to accomplish through the working of the life of Christ ‘inside’ us.  But with all my heart I pray that I will while I have time remaining in this temporary realm 🙂)

Thoughts developed or used directly from the work of Schaeffer, Francis. True Spirituality . Tyndale House Publishers, Inc