Mark 12:30, 31


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 12:30, 31

I always thought I understood this verse. To love God with all my heart, mind and strength meant to love Him with everything that I had, I was, and could be. And that is true, but what I did not understand was that I could fail Him without my knowledge, simply because love is such a big word. In God’s realm, love is perfect. In mine, it is imperfect. I can claim to love God, but does my love for Him bring from my life the righteousness and true holiness of the One I love? I have to say that I am not consistent in this. I am too often weak and unholy. My obedience, though I want it to be constant, sometimes is not; my inward affections are at times swayed, and my obedience is not always cheerful and willing allowing the fruit of the Holy Spirit to shine forth from my life. Ah, but here is the key to loving God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength: I need a Saviour! Jesus is my Saviour, and Him I cling to, and through Him, I willingly obey. With all my powers endowed through His Holy Spirit, I love God the way I should. And, I can love my neighbour, not with the selfish and sinful love which I love myself, but I will love my neighbour with the love of Christ. Healthy self-love is necessary for it will keep me from evil and will seek for me the greatest amount of good. This is how I am to measure love for my neighbour. I am to be tender and affectionate toward myself, as I am to my neighbour. And I am to be patient with myself, yet also persevere, so that my efforts succeed. These qualities too, I am to hold in my heart for others. With my Saviour, I will love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and with His love within me I can love my neighbour and seek his good. In this way I can honour these commandment as I should.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for your comments

Popular posts from this blog

Romans 8:26

Image
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans ~ Romans 8:26 Many days, many times, I have the words for prayer. It comes forth and flows fairly naturally as I converse with my Lord God. I hope in the God I worship to hear me, and to receive my words, as I pray in the name of Jesus and believe in Him, my intercessor. He is my Living Saviour, my High Priest, standing at the right hand of God the Father. But there are times when my pain has been so deep that my words will not come. There are times when my agony is so piercing that what words I may speak would not be enough. And so, in my deep, black moments, I come before my God and let my darkest emotions erupt in sounds that only He can understand. The Holy Spirit within me cries out in my stead, and He becomes my second intercessor. It is not that He is not there with me in all my prayers, but there are times wh...
Read more

Proverbs 18:2

Image
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in sharing their own opinions ~ Proverbs 18:2 If we are going to understand something, we must fully digest it so that when we speak, we speak with wisdom. When we have only half truths in our mind, our words become empty and senseless. We then puff out air rather than understanding when we speak. A wise person will want to improve their mind through learning in various ways from the world around them. A person who delights in spiritual understanding will find peace and enjoyment in reading the Word of God on a daily basis, and in participating with God’s people in a learning and praising environment – the church! We come together in corporate worship with the understanding that not one of us knows all things, but we bend our mind and heart to learn what God has to show and say to us. A foolish person makes a show of what they “know” to please their friends or to save face in front of them. More often a wise person will hold t...
Read more

Isaiah 43:19

Image
Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert ~ Isaiah 43:19 When we meet a challenge, we are often found discouraged, lost, even hopeless. Nothing is working, everything seems to be against us. We do not know how to move forward, so we remain curled up in a ball. Then, a glimmer of light shines through! Hope is regained and movement is stirred within. Don’t we become excited when we begin to feel it? God moves like that. We cannot see our way around it, but He can and does. And He makes a way for us out of the calamity of our fears. It is the feeling of springtime after a long winter, or the smell of fresh cut grass. Life stirs within and we move and we see what God saw all the time – the answer to our dilemma. Our desert place becomes an oasis, and we can do what we are called to do. Something totally unexpected happens, something unheard of, but it begins in our life, and we feel the...
Read more