Jesus teaches us the greatest commandments: Love God and others.
Matthew 22:34-40 34 When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" 37 He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
But when does this commandment really apply to us?
Do we love God even when God's plans are different from our plans? When God allows us or those we love to go through grief or pain or hardship? Are we committed to God only for what God can do for us? Or are we on board with God's purposes and plans for us? Even the tough ones? Jesus says to love God with all we are... our heart, our soul, our mind. Loving God means we have given up ourselves for God!
Does loving others apply when "others" aren't our political persuasion? Or when they are in authority over us? Or when they aren't loveable? What about when "others" hurt us? What about in times of war - our enemies - do we have to love them? How far does this love go? Jesus says to love others as ourselves. Loving others means we go all out for the other!
But is love just a feeling or is it an action word? Can I love someone who is being bullied and not protect them? Can I love someone who is going down the wrong path and not tell them? Can I love Jesus and not follow him even to the difficult places?
These verses have been taught with all kinds of qualifications attached. But Jesus didn't attach any. Love is not something easy or natural. And if it is just a feeling, it is worthless. Love is an action word.
Do we ignore Jesus' teaching that our top priority is to love God and others? Do we understand love as Jesus did or do we water it down to fit our own agendas?1 John 3:14-1814 We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 All who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them. 16 We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us-- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 17 How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? 18 Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
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