What is going on everyone!! So, this week, I was reading over this scripture in Mark where Jesus talks about the greatest two commandments that we should follow. Jesus says that, “And you shall 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: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31). This verse wrecked my life in a major way. Growing up, I always learned about Moses and the Ten Commandments. To be honest, trying to follow all of those can be pretty overwhelming. I love that Jesus comes and completely flips the script. He says that we only really need to focus on two commandments; to love God and to love others. To me, focusing on two things is a lot easier than focusing on ten things, am I right??
If you really think about it, the other 8 commandments fall under the umbrella of the major two commandments. The cool thing is that we don’t have to live our lives being bogged down by the pressure of being perfect. We live our lives, instead, in a way that expresses the freedom that love has took our place and we live as a thank you and as a reciprocation of what has been done for us. To me, that is a mind-blowing reality. When you experience that love in a real way, you can’t help but to love others even when it’s hard.
A couple of big question for me are: What does it look like to love God with everything? What does it look like to love others as myself? These are huge questions that we need to answer. To love God is to enjoy him (shoutout to John Piper). To enjoy Him looks like appreciating His creation, being grateful for the life He has given us, and searching for His heart for our lives. There are many more ways, I’m sure, but these are just a few practical ways. Now, for the other question: To love others, that looks like showing compassion for people. It also looks like showing grace to others too. That means that even when we have the power to destroy someone, we choose not to because we have been shown a crazy amount of grace. Loving others as ourselves means that we recognize that we are children of God, and so we are confident in the Holy Spirit that is inside of us, and in exchange, we see people in the same light. We are not holier than thou, nor are we just average people. We are ALL children of God, and that is the identity that we get to live out.
I pray this helps give some perspective on loving God and loving others. Not every day is perfect, but we do have a choice to set our minds and hearts on this truth, that we may progress and gain wisdom on this aspect of our lives.
Much Love,
Ryan W.
