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.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” — Matthew 22:34-40
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” — Mark 12:29-31
![Copenhagen Neighbours (by [Zakkaliciousness])](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1013/544692357_5f98dbd04f_m.jpg "Copenhagen Neighbours (by [Zakkaliciousness])")
Every time I read these passages, I am amazed that when Jesus was asked to give the greatest commandment, he replied by quoting two. The single greatest commandment in all of God’s will for us has two sides. We are called to love God, and to love people.
Now, it’s easy to understand (even if it’s hard to do) that we are supposed to love God. After all, we are supposed to love our parents for giving us life and caring for us, and God is the ultimate parent in that sense. He has given us life, he sustains our life, he cares for us and provides for us, and he really is that incredibly wonderfully awesomely holy and good and righteous and worthy of our love.
But what about my neighbor? What has he done for me? He didn’t give me life. He didn’t care for me. He isn’t all that incredible or wonderful or awesome. He certainly isn’t holy and good and righteous. He’s just a neighbor and I don’t even know him. Why should I love him?
Here are two reasons to love your neighbor:
- God wants you to be a loving person.
- God loves your neighbor.
One of the noisiest parts of our society is the noise that tells us to be selfish, to love ourselves, to please ourselves, and to do good to others so that good comes back to us. It’s all selfishness.
Jesus raises the point, however, that loving God necessarily requires us to become loving people, and we can’t be loving people without loving people. And since I don’t get to choose what kind of God I should love, I also don’t get to choose what kind of person I should love. I love the only God there is, and I love the people around me as they actually are. The only way to become a loving person is to simply start showing love.
If you are an emotional person by nature, spend some time with God in prayer asking him to cultivate in you positive feelings for the people around you. If you are a thinking person by nature, spend some time journalling on paper strategies for how to show other people how valuable they are.
BIG IDEA FOR THE DAY: Love others… feel it and do it.
