"Jesus replied,"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. And the second is like it:Love your neighbor as yourself." -Matthew 22:37-38 (NIV)
Wow. To think all of Scripture depends on two things: loving God and keeping Him first and loving your neighbor. Today we are going to go into a study of what exactly these two commands are, how we can live them out, and Scripture to encourage us and teach us.
- 1. Love the Lord with all your heart, all your mind and all your strength.
Don't you just adore how Jesus put into detail about loving the Lord with everything we have? We need to put God at the top of our list. Think of it as this: when you are in love with someone, you spend every waking minute with them, talk about them, and make them feel special right? And we know its not a bother because you are in love with them and you want to be with them. As simple as that. Same goes for God. We need to fall in love with Jesus Christ. When we experience God's all-powerful, life changing love, we experience a life change like no other. You notice yourself getting into Scripture, changing the way you act, and loving everyone around you. It's amazing! If maybe you've never experienced God's love and you want to today, you can! It's never too late. You can fall in love with God by just focusing on Scriptures on who God really is, His Creation, His love for you, and His mercy for you everyday, and talking to Your Heavenly Father.
- 2. Love your neighbor as yourself.
When I first read this, I was like "You really want me to do that God?! What about the people who hurt me?". Basically I was making excuses for myself. I know loving your neighbor isn't the easiest thing to do or the most popular, but its the way God wants us to live. Don't you think God knows what He's talking about? I mean, He's kept His Covenants for thousands of years and His Children who obeyed Him received the abundant life He promised. So by loving your neighbor, its not a burden..its a blessing! We receive joy and peace by the Holy Spirit, God is guiding us when we do it, and we are serving our Heavenly Father!!:) By the way, loving your neighbor isn't just the nice one or the one who brings the welcome brownies, but everyone you see, whether they are nice or harmful. So today let's pray for the Holy Spirit to fill us with Him to an overflowing harvest of joy, peace, patience, forgiveness, salvation, and a heart of God so we can not only love our Heavenly Father but also our neighbors good or bad.
- "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love." -Ephesians 4:2
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