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 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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