by Elyse Fitzpatrick
You shall love the Lord your God.
Matthew 22:37

Before I can give you the really good news, you know what I need to do? I must give you the bad news. Here’s what God’s law says: “You are to love the Lord your God with your whole soul, mind, and strength. You are to love the Lord your God with everything that is within you, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.”
How are you doing with that? While we’re at it, let’s not forget to add on top of that, “You are to love your neighbor the way you already love yourself.”
Now, let’s take that law and apply it to the family home. Consider these verses from Ephesians 5–6, which tell us how the Great Commandment is supposed to play out in your house: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. … Let the wife see that she respects her husband. … Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. … Do not be harsh with [her]. … Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. … Fathers [Parents], do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
Okay, here’s my problem: I want to do all those things required of me. I hear those verses, and I say, “Yes, Lord. Make that true of me. I want that to be me.” But I continually fail. I get up in the morning, and I pray that God will help me to love my neighbor. And then at the end of the day, I realize that even though I may be growing, my progress is painfully slow. And sometimes I see no progress at all.
Does God really mean I have to love my neighbor? Does He really mean I have to lay down my life for my neighbor? Does He really mean I’m supposed to submit to my husband? What, are you kidding?
I find myself echoing Paul’s thoughts from Romans 7, “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand” (v. 21). I want to say, like Paul says, “I delight in the law of God, in my inner being” (v. 22). I do. But “I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members” (v. 23).
Who will deliver me?

Thought to Remember for Today

And it is there, in that place—and only in that place—that we find grace. There’s no other place to find it. The only place you can find grace is when you say, “Nothing in my hands I bring. Simply to Thy Cross I cling.” I throw myself on the mercy of God, and that’s the only place grace resides.

Fitzpatrick, E. (2016). Grace untamed: a 60-day devotional. Colorado Springs, CO: David C Cook.