Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with
all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like
unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Matthew
22:37-39
The foundation of our
being starts with love… As a child of God we are commanded to love; this is not
an option, but it is something that is required… Going deeper with our focus
verses, we must understand today that Love is not a surface word, but one that
is displayed throughout your total being… This is why Jesus says “love the Lord thy God will all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind…” So many of us have missed
the mark not because we don’t know Christ, but because we have not walked in
the love that defines who are Lord is… Jesus says that love is the first and
greatest commandment because when we walk in the Love of our Lord we will
perform actions that will carry out the commandments given to us beginning in
the book of Exodus the 20th chapter… Love has to take root in your
life and it starts with your obedience and submission to the Lord… As you
develop your relationship with God and learn to walk in love, you will then
have to go deeper and that means to extend loving hands to your neighbors… Notice
that Jesus says what the first and greatest commandment is and then says, “The second is like unto it…” Walking
in love will bring about total devotion to the Lord and when Love is abounding
in your life you can’t steal or kill, you won’t covet or disrespect your
parents… Love has to be the cornerstone and driving force and that means that
you must have a relationship with the Lord… The bible says that “God is
love…” So you are not walking in love if you are not walking in Christ…
Make no mistake about it, you are not here by your own doing, but through the
love of God… It was the love God has for us that allowed Him to sacrifice His
son and pave the road to forgiveness and salvation, it was the love Christ had
for us to hang on the cross and go down into the belly of this earth and it is
the love that we have for God that keeps us in His will and striving to become
more and more like Him… This walk as a
Christian calls for a total commitment to the will of God! Jesus is
instructing us today through the gospel of Matthew about the foundation that
will lead to eternal salvation. True love is formed or born through trials and
tribulations… I can always say I love you to someone, but until my love is
tested (and grounded in the Lord) you will never know the severity of how much
or deep my love goes. A lot of us
mistake lust for love and the difference in the two is evident in our
commitment to that particular person of thing… Jesus says that we are to
love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind! We can’t say we love
Him when we feel like it or when He has blessed us and curse Him when things
aren’t going as we planned… We can’t throw our hands up in praise for His
goodness, and drop our head in defeat when the storms of life begin to rage…
James [Jesus’ Brother] tells us to consider it pure joy when we face trials!
Understanding God’s goodness and faithfulness will bring about spiritual
freedom and peace that will keep you smiling no matter what task or hurdle lay
before you! This is the first and great
commandment, we must give God preeminence!
He should be on our
mind when we wake up [take time to pray], He should be in our thoughts
regardless of the circumstances that we face. David slipped up when
he saw Bathsheba bathing, Sampson was conquered when Delilah tricked him, and
Adam and Eve fell at the hands of a (n) apple… All the devil needs is a crack
to open the flood gates and cause you to drown in sin; this is why we are
taught today to love God will all our being…
We must
first love God with a total commitment too Him before we can take the next step
in this verse which is that, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself…”
A lot of us stumble at the approach of loving people, this happens because we
first don’t have a committed relationship to the Lord and secondly, we really
don’t’ know how to love ourselves… I have seen so many people with a nasty
attitude and it derives from the disgust that they have with themselves… Jesus
died while we were yet sinners, He died for us when we were ugly, beaten down
and scarred because He saw the true jewel and diamond we are… This is why we
must have the love of God within us, because the world will tell us that we are
ugly, worthless and valueless; however, God tells me that “He thought it not
robbery to leave His home in glory…” Jesus demonstrated to us that when we
love something completely, we will give all we have too it; likewise, we will
do whatever tasks that are put before us to maintain and strengthen that love…
When you are in love with someone you give all you have to that person and then
you will also do whatever is asked of you… God instructs us that the greatest
command is to love the Lord and the second is to love thy neighbor… This love
should be shown through our walk, but it should also be manifested in the way
we treat others! We should have a kind word for our fellow man, we should be
able to lift him up when he’s down, be there for support when things aren’t
playing into there hands or simply to love them and encourage them to continue
to pursue this Christian walk and become the men and women that God has called
them to be… True love always has an
element of sacrifice, true love causes you to go above and beyond your normal
realm of thinking, and it causes you to focus on the individual and not the
trial! That’s why God says that we must love Him and our neighbor, He knows
we will have to sacrifice to carry our cross, He knows that we will have to
smile in the face of our enemies even when they have stabbed us in the back… He
has given us a spirit to overcome these challenges, a spirit to adhere to His
calling and to put away malice and anger! His commandment is to love as Christ
loved us and give His life! Your life
should be full of love, which means it should be full of sacrifice!
BE BLESSED!!!
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