Loving God & Loving Neighbor

Scripture

“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” – Matthew 22:37-40, NKJV

Throughout Jesus’s earthly ministry, the Pharisees and Sadducees often challenged and tested Jesus with religious laws. Here in this passage of Matthew 22, it was another opportunity the religious leaders used to test Jesus. They were very knowledgeable about the laws, but were more interested in defeating Jesus rather than learning the truth. So they questioned him on which commandment was the greatest. Jesus’ answer was in two great commandments He gives here: Love God and Love your neighbor.

Loving God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind essentially means: loving God with every part of our being. We are to live out this type of love in our work, school, home, community, and every other area of our life. This means also loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Out of the Ten Commandments, the first four commandments deal with our relationship with God; and the last 6 deal with our relationship with others. If we are loving God with our every being, then we are not putting idols or other gods above him. If we are loving our neighbor then we are not stealing, killing, or coveting anything from our neighbor. Doing these two acts of love will mean that we will automatically keep the each of the commandments. Loving God with our every being will have us automatically loving our neighbor.

This love is an unconditional love. We have the tendency of loving when we feel like it, when our neighbor has been “neighbor-like” to us or when God is answering prayers and handing out the blessings we want. Can you love despite how you feel? God is love, and being created in his image means we have the capacity to give and receive this type of love; however, we need help through Jesus to intentionally show unconditional love.

Reflections:

While God never changes and neither does His love; humans do. This is why we the supernatural power of Jesus to help us to love the way God loves.

Spend time in prayer this week asking God to show you how to love the way He loves, and to reveal to you the people and things that tend to take priority over what it means to love Him with all your heart, soul, and mind.

Find ways this week to demonstrate this love at work, home, school, or community.