God has made it simple. We’ve made it complex.
K.I.S.S. Keep it simple, stupid. A little abrupt perhaps, but an effective way to make the point that sometimes we just need to focus on the key points and not get lost in the details. Somehow we need to apply this concept to religion, which has become a source of confusion and conflict for many people.
Christianity, like other religions, has become splintered into hundreds of divisions or denominations, each based on different interpretations and beliefs, but much of what they are divided over isn’t in the Bible. What? That’s right. If it were in the Bible it would be easy to agree on, now wouldn’t it! And the rest of the disagreements are over minor things that shouldn’t even matter if you understand the Bible’s main message.
So what’s in the Bible? It’s the story of God’s relationship with mankind. It holds insights into God’s nature, incredible wisdom on human nature, and countless examples of how far we stray from what is right and true when we chose to live apart from God. And although the Bible contains dozens of books and thousands of pages, Jesus reduced it down to some very simple “K.I.S.S.” principles. When one of the religious leaders of the day, an expert in religious law, tried to test Jesus, he asked this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied:
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:35-40)
And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:
“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12)
In these simple commands, we find the foundation and summation of everything in the Scriptures. God just asks that we love Him and love others enough to treat them as we would like to be treated. Why is that so hard to understand? Maybe if people would actually read the Bible they’d realize there’s nothing in God’s name to fight about. He’d prefer that we just KISS, that is, keep it super simple.
“I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
Words of Jesus Christ in John 17:20-23
“And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. “I do not accept praise from men, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts.”
Words of Jesus Christ in John 5:37-42
”You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.”
Words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 15:7-9
“I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”
Words of Jesus Christ in Mark 10:15