Bargain Hunting

I read James 1-5

James has some interesting things on keeping God's commandments: "You can't pick and choose in these things, specializing in keeping one or two things in God's law and ignoring others. The same God who said, 'Don't commit adultery,' also said, 'Don't murder.' If you don't commit adultery but go ahead and murder, do you think your non-adultery will cancel out your murder? No, you're a murderer, period" (James 2:9-11).

Isn't it funny the creative ways we come up with to bargain with God? There's James' example up above, there's the, "God, if you give me this thing I want I'll do this for you," and variations thereof (although, I suppose, it worked for Luther). We are always trying to get one by God somehow, making promises we aren't really sure we want to keep.

But here's the truly ironic part: God already has given us the best bargain we're going to ever find. He's died for our sins and all he asks is that we love him and our fellow humans. That's it. There's no fine print, no strings attached. It doesn't get easier than that, but we make it much more complicated than that. Love God, love others. It's the best deal we'll ever find.