Ezekiel 11.20 concludes God’s promise for changing His people, so they will obey My decrees and regulations. Then they will truly be My people, and I will be their God.
The One True God, the Christian God, makes obedience to Him quite simple to understand. He boils down His will for humanity into the two commands of love Him first and most and love our neighbor like we love ourselves. This isn’t hard to understand and certainly seems reasonable.
The hard part, the part all humanity from all time has been unable to do, is actually live it. Our first conflict is with God Himself. Page 3 of the Bible tells of humanities desire to be god instead of remaining submissive to God.
Page 3! Barely into God’s story is the recording of humanities rebellion against God. We want to be god because we want absolute power, control and authority over our circumstances and others. It is why we do what we want to do regardless of what impact it may have on ourselves or others.
The result of this rebellion is our own demise. It explains war, poverty, disease and death. Remaining in rebellion means when we face God for judgement we will finally understand we are not god and will miss the eternity we could have had with Him where love and peace reign forever.
Second, loving others as ourselves is hard because we love ourselves and then others if we deem it to be in our best interest. This type of loving explains divorce and damage in our relationships whether with family, neighbor or employer. Loving others after loving ourselves keeps us selfish and self absorbed but also lonely and isolated.
God promises to help us if we will let Him. He promises to give us new hearts that will motivate us to love Him and love others. He invites us to faith, faith that will trust that the process of loving God first and others as myself really will result in my being the happiest and healthiest version of myself possible.
True love abandons self preservation for loving God and others resulting in eternal salvation with God and those who also have loved Him and others. That will truly be heaven.
