Building Healthy Relationships – Matthew 22:36-40
If I were to ask you, “What one thing must a person do to be a good citizen of the United States?” what would you answer? If an immigrant were to ask you that question – “What one thing must a person do to be a good citizen of the U. S.?” what would you respond?
Work hard? Pay your taxes? Speak English? Obey the law?
As humans, we like to simplify things. We like to boil things down to the very basic information. Give me the sound bites, the quick news – the “headline” news.
What does God expect out of us Christians? How would we answer that? If we could boil things down to one commandment, what might we say? What is the one thing that God expects out of Christians? Be baptized? Worship? Repent? Glorify God? Help our fellow man?
In the context of trying to trap Jesus, some Jewish leaders come to Jesus with that basic question – What is the greatest commandment? The answer Jesus gives is both simple, as simple as it gets, and profound, for it demands all that we have and all that we can give.
THE GREATEST COMMAND – 22:37-38:
Please observe what Jesus does first – He quotes from the Bible, from their law! But, in fact, Jesus does not quote from the Ten Commandments! He jumps forward about 40 years from the Ten Commandments recorded in Exodus to the book of Deuteronomy, 6:5.
We at our online pharmacy cialis sales canada provide the FDA approved quality medication at cheap rates. This natural penis tadalafil tablets india enlargement medicine is accessible online through . So the proper treatment should be imputed in shop levitra order to treat Diabetic Nephropathy, we must treat Diabetes Mellitus first. But other enterprise applications, when combined with effective project management by capable professionals, can be rolled out rapidly when it really counts … like after a https://www.unica-web.com/watch/2010/in-uhlisko-over-porubka.html order generic levitra merger or acquisition. Not only does Jesus quote Moses, but He quotes one of the most familiar things Moses ever wrote! This was a passage that many Jews had written over the doorposts and wore on cloth on their shirt sleeves and around their foreheads. Every faithful Jew would quote this passage twice a day! Jesus hits the Pharisees right between the eyes with His answer! He is simply telling them to do what they already knew to do!
Jesus, then, tells the Pharisees what they already knew – they were to love God with all of their being. Love for God is an intelligent love, a feeling love, a willing love, and a serving love.
THE SECOND-GREATEST COMMAND – 22:39-40:
Jesus then gives a second answer, two for the price of one, telling the lawyer that there is a “second greatest commandment.” Here, Jesus jumps into the middle of the law of Moses, to Leviticus 19:18, a chapter that begins with God telling Israel to be “holy” for He is holy. One way, then, for Israel to be holy was to love their neighbor as they love themselves!
So, then, we are to worship God with all of our heart, soul, and mind.
We are to evangelize with all of our heart, soul, and mind.
We are to serve our fellow man with all of our heart, soul, and mind.
And we are to encourage each other with all of our heart, soul, and mind.
Let us love God supremely and serve our fellowman sacrificially.
–Paul Holland
