I'm sorry jriccitelli, I must be a tad dull because even though you say it's simple, I'm still struggling to understand.
Am I accurate in describing the law of Christ as "loving God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself"? Or is this too simplistic or just plain wrong? Does the law of Christ include prohibitions against drunkenness, homosexual behavior, etc.?
Do we 'keep' the Law of Christ?
No, we cannot love our neighbor as ourselves, (If you do let me know), but if we are 'in' Jesus we can love our neighbor, because He can, it is the same with the whole Law, it is kept 'in' Him.
You're right I don't love as God does even though, as a follower of Jesus, I consider myself to be "in" him (abiding in him).
The only difference is that Jesus 'Christ' fulfilled His own Law, and so we do also 'in' Him, what we could not do otherwise.
So if I am "in" him, my failure to keep the law of Christ (due to inability) is overlooked because of the fact that I am in him and he fulfilled his own law. Is this what you're saying?
I suspect even though I can't love God with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength and love my neighbor as myself, God still wants me to try, right? Because I want to remain "in" him, I should obey his command to love others as he has loved me (although I can't do it as perfectly), right?
And it seems that although I can't love at the level that Jesus says I should, I can avoid getting drunk. So if we are "in" Christ, does that mean we do the things we can do and we don't sweat the areas where we fall short because we remember that we are in a covenant of grace?
I know I'm asking a lot of questions, but as you can see, what's simple for you to understand is difficult for me
Let me boldly state the obvious. If you are not sure whether you heard directly from God, you didn’t.
~Garry Friesen