1. It’s easy to get overwhelmed if you look at God’s law as a checklist for righteousness that is to be executed woodenly in your life. But there is another way, a simple way—not necessarily an easy way, but a simple way—to approach God’s requirements for righteous living. St. Augustine summed it up quite nicely: Just love—then do what you will.

The Journey // Focus: Leviticus 19:1-2, 3 7

The Lord also said to Moses, “Give the following instructions to the entire community of Israel. You must be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy. …You must be careful to keep all of my decrees and regulations by putting them into practice. I am the Lord.

One of the great Christians of the early church era, Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo (in modern Algeria) preached a sermon in which he said, “Once and for all, I give you this one short command: love, and do what you will.” In my humble opinion, that is not only a great prescription for living a God-honoring life of great impact, it would make an apt title for anyone preaching Leviticus 19.

Between the first and last verses of this chapter, there are thirty distinct commands the Lord gave his people, by my count. The chapter opens with God saying to the Israelites, “I’m holy, so you be holy, too—and here’s how… (Leviticus 19:1) It ends with God capping off this Divine list of holy things for his people to do with, “carefully obey them down to the last detail—not just in thought, but in deed.” (Leviticus 19:37). Then right in the middle, literally, of these thirty demands, he again says, “these are important, so let me be clear: carefully and completely obey everything that I am telling you to do!” (Leviticus 19:18)

The list is comprehensive. Some of the commands are obvious requirements of righteousness. Some seem a bit arcane. It doesn’t matter what we think of them, if we like them, if we agree with them, they are God’s requirements for his people to distinguish themselves as set apart from the other people of the earth, to live in respectful relationship with each other, and to walk in purity before him.

It would be easy to get overwhelmed if you looked at this simply as a checklist for righteousness that was to be executed woodenly in our lives. But I think there is another way, a simple way—not necessarily an easy way, but a simple way—to approach these commands. Augustine summed it up quite nicely:

Just love. Then do what you will.

One month before his death at age 65, C.S. Lewis wrote in a letter addressed to a child, “If you continue to love Jesus, nothing much can go wrong with you, and I hope you may always do so.”

Love! Do that and you’ll be just fine—in this life and in the one to come. Just love God with all your heart, and when you do, you cannot help but love everybody else. Do that and you’ll fulfill all God’s requirements.

That’s great advice—and a pretty simple, not easy, but simple way to live an extraordinary life!