Matthew 22:37-39
The foundation of our being starts with love… 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 of 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 to Him before we can take the next step in this verse which is that, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor 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!
ALL FOR HIS GLORY!
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