Introduction
As followers of the Lord Jesus, we must love and obey the Lord at all times, regardless of where we are or our circumstances. When we attend church or pray, perhaps we put on a holy face to appear holy to those around us and demonstrate by our outward actions that we love and obey the Lord in all things. However, our love for the Lord must not be formal but must come from the inside of our hearts (Luke 18:10-14). So, the question we should ask ourselves is whether we truly love the Lord and abide by His commandments, not just by attending church but also by following the Lord from within our hearts, both in and outside the church and at all times. All of us might know the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21. So, we might think that as Christians, if we do not murder, commit adultery, steal, lie, etc., it is enough. However, the Lord Jesus elevated these commandments to a higher level for us. There is a deeper spiritual level, not only an outside level, that the Lord commanded us to live by in our daily lives. We are not supposed to clean only the outside of the cup and platter but also the inside. The Lord gives us many commandments and warnings related to our failure to abide by His teachings.
How To Clean the Inside of The Cup and Platter
In Matthew 23:13-39, we can find the woes that the Lord Jesus told to the religious leaders of that time. These woes can also have application to our Christian living today. Specifically, for the topic of this blog, we will comment on Matthew 23:25-28.
Matthew 23:25 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
26 Blind Pharisee! Cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the platter so that the outside of them might become clean also.
The cup and platter themselves: they clean the outside of the cup and platter, not the inside that has been cleaned, but they clean the outside. These verses also refer to the outside of some Christians; some call themselves Christians, but only their appearance shows as Christian, but their inside itself has never yet been cleansed. It is the same as the leaders in the old times: they dress as kings, but inwardly, they are dirtier than the house of animals. Also, many of us may appear outwardly nice, but our hearts are often filled with negativity. You cannot be clean just on the outside; the Word of God tells us that if we do not clean within, the outside has no meaning in the eyes of the Lord. Remember that the Bible always tells us that the Lord looks inside the heart and mind.
27 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whited tombs, which from outside indeed appear beautiful, but from within are full of bones of the dead, and of all uncleanness.
28 Even so you also outwardly indeed appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
The meaning in these verses is similar to that in verses 25 to 26. “Whited tombs” or “whitewashed tombs” are used to compare the actions they make; they look beautiful on the outside, but for God, the inwardly is to be cleaned up, not just to put the unclean in a corner or push it out in the corner and let it rot. That is why their actions are compared to a tomb; inside a tomb, there are only dead bones (the unclean is kept inside); they just decorate the outside, but the inside of their hearts is full of uncleanness.
Similarly, nowadays, in the church, people wear beautiful dresses, but how many are clean inwardly? They should read these woes.
So, how should we clean our cups and platters to be pleasing to the Lord? Firstly, we must read and meditate on the Word of God daily, and not only that, but we must also follow in our lives what the Lord commands us to do. If we start following the Ten Commandments in our lives, our Lord Jesus summarized the Ten Commandments of God into these two, as given in Matthew 22:34-40 and Mark 12:30-31, which, if we truly obey, will encompass all the others. Specifically, we post our comments on Matthew 22:36-40 here.
Matthew 22:36 Teacher, which commandment is the greatest in the law?
This lawyer was a leader of religion at that time; religious leaders claimed that they were the ones who knew everything about the law of God. The Lord here used Scripture to reply to them; He told them straightforwardly: you do not know the Scripture. The Lord showed them His knowledge, but they still tested Him. There are two types of people: one from the past and another in the present. In those times, they tested the Lord’s authority, while nowadays, humans test the Lord’s patience. Think that the Lord has died for all; the Lord did not die just for the Jews alone but for the whole world. Yet, only a small number of people have come to recognize that, and this is a test of the Lord’s patience against the Lord’s mercy for humans. Many people in the church and those who claim to be believers speak by mouth, not by heart, and their mouth leads them to judgment.
37 And He said to him, You shall love the Lord Thy God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
38 This is the great and first commandment.
39 The second like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
40 On these two commandments all the law hangs, and the Prophets.
The neighbor here is anyone the Lord brings to your path, not those that only walk and pass you by, but those you interact with (See Luke 10:36-37). There is always some purpose in connecting with someone, regardless of the type of people you meet. If you are good to them, inside of them, they will have a question, “Why are you good to them?” And if the conversation comes, you can tell them this is one of the principles of teaching from the Bible. Make them think of the Bible, and you will open their hearts to search by themselves.
In Matthew 5:17, the Lord tells us that He came to earth to fulfill (more precisely, to complete) the Law and the Prophets. Meaning that the Lord Jesus fulfilled (completed) the Law and the Prophets within Himself by His sacrifice on the cross, so we only need to worship the Lord Jesus to obey the Law and the Prophets. However, He continues to give us stricter commandments in His Word, for example, in Matthew 5:21-22 and Matthew 5:27-28, among others. So, as Christians, we are called to live our lives to the highest moral standards, but do we actually do that? Therefore, we need to regularly read and meditate on the Word of God and apply the Lord’s commands and teachings in our daily lives.
Following the example of loving one’s neighbor given by our Lord Jesus in Luke 10:29-37, we can understand how to love our neighbor. But then, one might ask how can we love God, and what does that mean for us today?
In John 14:15, we find the answer to what it means to love the Lord our God.
John 14:15 If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
The beloved Son of God has given a clear meaning to loving Him. As the verse has told, if you love Him, keep all the commandments He has given to you; if you don’t remember all the commandments, you do not love Him enough yet, you did not repeat His commandments enough in your heart; but if your heart truly wants to know, go and search in the Holy Bible and you will see all the commandments He has given.
This verse refers to all humans because the Father has created the humans for His pleasure; so, you, as a human, since you are created for Him, must follow His commandments.
In Matthew 22:37-40, the Lord Jesus gave two important commandments. What other commandments should we consider besides these two? When the beloved Son of God has talked about love, He also has talked about loving the Word as well, and then we must find for ourselves how to love the Word and what we should do with that love of the Word; should we just read the Word and let it rest or meditate on it and get understanding and follow? And when we understand and follow, that would be enough to follow His commandments.
Conclusions
Therefore, we need to keep all the commandments but to do so, we must first understand them. To gain understanding, it is essential to read the Word of God and meditate on it; we should then earnestly ask the Holy Spirit to dwell within us and guide us. Without the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we cannot understand the spiritual aspects related to being a true follower of the Lord Jesus. Below, we enumerate some fundamental faith beliefs that one must have and commandments to follow to be a faithful follower of the Lord Jesus (read our Core Faith Statement).
- Believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and He came on earth to bring salvation to the world.
- Believe in the Lord Jesus, specifically that He was born of the Virgin and the Holy Spirit; He is the Son of God; He is One with the Father and the Holy Spirit (believe in the Trinity of God); believe in the work of the cross that the Lord Jesus died for the sins of the world and redemption from our sins is found only in Him; believe in the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus; believe that now, He is seated at the right hand of the Father in the heaven; believe that He is coming again to take us to His kingdom; be the light in the world by being an example and sharing our knowledge about the Lord and what He did for us.
- Repent from sins by asking God’s mercy and forgiveness in the name of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ; go and baptize in the water in the name of the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, for cleansing from sins (read our article: Water Baptism for a Christian).
- Believe in the Holy Spirit baptism; pray and wait for the baptism in the Holy Spirit by following the Lord Jesus’ promise from Luke 24:49, “And behold, I am sending out the promise of My Father upon you; but remain you in the city, until you be clothed with power from on high.” In the same way, we believe the Lord tells all of us to wait and pray to receive power from above; therefore, we should never give up on praying and waiting to receive the precious gift of the Holy Spirit Baptism so we can serve Him better (read our article: Holy Spirit Baptism for a Christian).
In our Christian walk, the ultimate goal of every true follower of the Lord Jesus should be to receive the promise of the Father as promised by the Lord Jesus in Luke 24:49 by believing and being humble, grow in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and live the life daily in submission to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Meditation Tasks:
- Check our love thermometer towards the Lord and pray for guidance and obedience.