Let Us Love 💕

March 5, 2019

Numbers 4-5:31, Mark 12:18-37, Psalm 48:1-14, Proverbs 10:26

Going through the first few books of the Old Testament we have heard a lot of commandments. The Ten Commandments are of course the famous, but there are commands and laws all over these books. In the Jewish culture, the Torah and these commands are impressed on children at a young age and everyone knows these commands...The Law. To have a "teacher of the law" ask and challenge Jesus with the question, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" Was a test the Sadducees were placing on Jesus. 

""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 NIV. This command was first heard in Deuteronomy 6, after the Ten Commandments were presented. This is The Greatest Commandment, and it's twofold. 

1. God is first and must be loved by all parts of us: heart, soul, mind, and strength. It's the emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and physical parts that make us us! When I think of it, it's almost impossible to wrap my mind around what all of me means. But it means ALL. 
2. We must love our neighbors- strangers, country men, coworkers, family, etc. as ourselves! Easier said than done, right!?! 

So how are we showing love? Are we living Biblical pictures of love? Do we live I Corinthians 13's description of love: "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NIV. 

Are we loving the way Christ loved? "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends."

John 15:12-13 NIV

Are we loving our neighbors the way John challenged us? Because if we say we love God, and desire to obey the first and greatest commandment, we must love others. 

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."

1 John 4:7-12 NIV

I am challenged and I challenge you to love a little more, a little deeper, and a little more intentionally today and tomorrow. "They will know we are Christians by our love," they (the world) will know God through our love.