MATTHEW 22:34-40 – But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And 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. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
THEME OF THE DAY: IT IS ALL ABOUT PEOPLE. Do you love God? Do I? As Christians, this is the greatest privilege that the Gospel of the Lord Jesus enables us to do. To love God was our created purpose established in the Garden of Eden when God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Genesis 1:26). Oh, the harmony of being in a loving relationship with our God and Creator! But then, sin enters the human experience, and the greatest loss was our ability and desire to love God.
Yet, another “but” comes into the picture, a very good “but” and that of the Gospel which brings us back into the ability and desire to fulfill our created purpose – love God. The Apostle Paul writes, But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-6).
Now back to the opening question “Do you love God? Do I? In today’s scripture are two commands – love God with all our being and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Notice what connects these two commands. It is called “a coordinating conjunction” that inseparably links two things. What this means as applied to the two commands in today’s scripture is that we cannot separate them. We cannot say, “I love God” and not love people. The first command empowers the second command – to love God leads to loving people. And here are the applications . . .
To love God is true to the extent we strive to obey His commands. Jesus makes it very clear to love Him is to obey Him – “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15). So, let’s strive to put known commands of the Lord into action validating our words, “I love You, Lord.”
The second application involves loving people, and remember the commands are a marriage that knows no divorce. When it comes to loving our neighbor or people that means actively serving people, investing in people, and helping people. Do a study on all the “one another” commands in the Bible. There are 59 and they show us the ways “to put feet” on our pursuit of obeying the command to “love our neighbor as ourselves.”
Loving God and loving our neighbors. Commands to obey and privileges to exercise, and in obeying the first, it always leads to the second, and that means it is all about people – serving, investing and helping them out of our love for God.
RAYER: “Father, help me to see that all obedience to You involves impacting people for You.”
QUOTE: “To love God demands we love people and to love people means investing in people.”
In the affection of Christ Jesus,
Pastor Jim