Mark 12:28-31 – And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
THEME OF THE DAY. LIFE’S GREATEST PRIVILEGE. How would you answer today’s nugget theme? If you are a spiritually healthy believer, I would expect responses along these lines; “My greatest privilege in life is being a Christian” or “My greatest privilege in life is knowing God.” And those are great Biblical answers, but I want us to go a little deeper. The reason for doing so is two-fold. We may easily say, “My greatest privilege in life is being a Christian” and actually not be exercising that privilege. The landscape is filled with backslidden, indifferent, and lukewarm Christians. That isn’t a critical judgment. It is an assessment based on what Jesus said concerning end times, “And because lawlessness (sin) will be increased the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). All genuine Christians fight the battle to maintain first love for Jesus. All of us face a daily struggle to keep Christ on the throne of our hearts directing our lives. There is a reason why the Christian life is called a “fight, a race, the narrow way, and difficult”.
The other answer about life’s greatest privilege, “knowing God” is also easy to say, but ignore or drift from its practice. How do we know God? Through His means of grace which are diligence in His Word, prayer, and church. And again, what Christian won’t confess the daily challenges and pressures from the world and its demands pulling us away from these necessary spiritual disciplines to know the Lord.
So, what is life’s greatest privilege? It is found in today’s scripture. The greatest privilege known to a human being is obeying the two greatest commandments; love God and love people. Nothing produces more joy, contentment, and purpose in life than obedience to these commands of God. They direct us to why we were created and re-created in Christ Jesus. They give us an inward satisfaction which outshines all the ‘fool’s gold’ and false promises found in the world’s offers of satisfaction and pleasure.
As we think on loving God through aggressive and compassionate obedience as life’s greatest privilege, let’s make it practical. First, to love God and people requires conscious and intentional actions. There is too much mindless Christianity among us of just going through the motions of Christianity without the reality of Christ and the power of Christianity. Just going to church, reading our Bibles, and even praying, falls short of the mandate to love God and people. In order to overcome these obstacles to true Christianity, we must engage our minds with purpose. We obey commands on purpose. Love is on purpose with specific actions. We cannot love vaguely. It must be intentional. By remembering this, we will be in the Word more in order to know what God expects of us to display the obedience of love.
Another practical application of loving God and people as life’s greatest privilege is putting into our lives the chief principle of Christian living; self-denial. The world is engulfed in itself. Sin may be defined as selfishness. And our churches are not immune to this culture of self. If we view the church existing to satisfy, fulfill, and serve us, we are missing the whole of the Christian life. We are called to deny self, not fulfill self. To love God and people, self-love must die.
Life’s greatest privilege is loving God and people. He has not only directed those to us as life’s fulfilling purposes, but has provided the means to do so; intentional obedience to His Word empowered by His Holy Spirit. May the Lord make us people living out our greatest privilege.
PRAYER: “Father, I praise You for granting me the greatest privilege a human will ever know; loving You.”
QUOTE: “There is a joy that comes from obeying God that outshines any of earth’s fleeting pleasures.”