“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.” All the law and
the prophets hang on these two commandments.
Matthew 22:37-40 (NIV)
Matthew 22:37-40 (NIV)
It is dangerous to be too familiar with
a Scripture. Familiarity can make us rush right through a passage and not hear
the gentle voice of God saying, “Wait a minute. You missed something.” So it is
with this passage.
Love
the Lord with all your heart. What do we
love? I love my freedom, to be able to do as I please, when I please. I love
spending time doing the things that I enjoy – reading, writing, visiting and talking
with friends. So what if God asks me to interrupt that doing-as-I-please mode?
What if he asks me to come and sit quietly with him, reading and studying his
word, listening to what he may want to say to me in the Scriptures? What if he
wants me to teach a children’s class, or serve on a committee, or go to some
distant land to help someone I don’t know? Love the Lord with all your heart? Isn’t that a little close to fanaticism? Does
he really mean all?
With
all my soul? I’m not even sure exactly
what my soul is. That something inside me that has no shape or form, where my
will resides, where my moral attitudes lie, that will someday leave my body
when I die? So if I love him with my soul, must my will and my morality conform
to his will and his guidelines for life and eternity? Is this his plan for me?
No small thing he’s asking!
With
all my mind? With all my mind that is
being guided by my soul that is trying to please him in thought and action?
That means no space for being mad at someone, no time for complaining about
things I don’t like, no worrying about things that are not for me to decide,
studying so that I will know what his will for me is. This first commandment
gets harder and harder!
Love
your neighbor as yourself. I have a real
problem with this. Sometimes I don’t even like myself, much less love myself!
Suddenly it seems that God is saying that I must love not only others but me!
I’m simply not always easy to love.
Ten Commandments just got reduced to
two, and they seem harder to keep than the ten! But they must have been very
important. Jesus had very little time left on earth, and he used it to remind
disciples about important things! Love God most! Love others. Don’t forget to
love yourself. When I look at them carefully, I realize this is a pretty big
commandment! A huge commandment!
Prayer: Father, the Pharisees asked Jesus about the
greatest commandment and he answered very clearly – love you, others and
ourselves. We fail. We have a long way to go in living lives that please you. As
we move through this Holy Week, remind us of these important words of our Lord,
and help us to live what we have heard you say! Thank you for Jesus who died
for our failures and lives to help us not fail again. Amen.
Holy Week
Devotional
prepared for Homosassa United Methodist Church, March 2008,
by Patience Nave, Christian Education Coordinator
prepared for Homosassa United Methodist Church, March 2008,
by Patience Nave, Christian Education Coordinator
blog.avasflowers.com
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