Love Jesus . . . Love Others . . . Pretty Simple
Matthew 22 gives us an account of Jesus having a discussion with some religious folks who were very interested in following the law. We read an interesting discussion he had with a group of Pharisees . . .
Matthew 22:34-36 (NLT)
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. 35 One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” 37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
This is a very interesting question asked by this “expert in religious law.” The question was not asked to gain any new knowledge. I mean, what could this well-studied man learn from such a simple man like Jesus. However, as Jesus answers this question, he gives a two-fold response. He said, we first need to love the Lord our God with all . . . all our heart, all our soul and all our mind. Then, he goes on to say we need to love our neighbor as ourselves. The Greek word for neighbor does not signify the person next door, rather, it signifies anyone.
Christians can learn a great deal from this two-fold answer given by Christ. You see, Jesus is telling us that our love for others should be a natural overflow of our love for Christ. Too many times, our local churches have evolved from places of worship to war zones. As a matter of fact, if you have been an active part of the local church for any length of time, you probably have a war story. We so often get focused on our own agendas, or our own ideas, or our own way of doing things that we forsake the mission of the church and get focused on a lot of petty disagreements and incidental matters. When this happens, people outside of the church look at those inside of the church and decide they don’t want anything do with it.
Our local churches must impact our community. So remember . . .
Love Jesus
Love Others
Pretty Simple
