“After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you are aware that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the gospel message and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he also did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith…..And the words of the prophets agree with this, as it is written:” Acts 15:7-9, 15 CSB https://bible.com/bible/1713/act.15.7-15.CSB

Christians have always wrestled with how to live out our faith in Jesus. Living like Jesus is simple but not easy. What exactly does that mean? The earliest church wrestled with this question, and some insisted that much of the law of Moses needed to be obeyed. The Apostles’ answer to this question is interesting. They did not quote Jesus, though He had spent three years with them, teaching them His new covenant established by His blood. Instead, they looked at their experience with God’s Holy Spirit, and they looked to the word of God they already had written, the Old Testament prophets. The gospels were being written then, but interestingly, the Apostles do not quote Jesus. While there may not have been much to quote from Him about His requirements for the New Covenant, His teaching reflected an inclusion of all people and a requirement only to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength that would be reflected in a complete disregard for all things of this world including our desires. Salvation is by faith in the life and work of Jesus, Whose death on the cross paid the penalty for our disobedience to God. We are now to live as Jesus did, loving God most by loving people as ourselves, which looks like obedience to everything Jesus commanded and placing our neighbor’s needs above our own, including our neighbor’s need for repentance, even at the expense of our lives.