“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied;  ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it:  ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’.  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Yesterday we talked about the Pharisees, the highly esteemed religious leaders of Jesus’ time.  They were trying to trip Jesus up with this question, which is the greatest commandment?  You see Jesus teaches that sin is sin.  No sin is greater than another sin.  One sin can send you to hell just as well as any.  Remember the ten commandments?  They are as follows:  you shall have no other Gods before Me, you shall not make or worship false Gods, you shall not take the Lord’s name in vain, you are to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, honor your father and your mother, you shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony against your neighbor, you shall not covet your neighbor’s belongings.  So the Pharisees are going to try to trap Jesus by asking him which is the greatest of these commandments.  Jesus answered them by saying that the greatest commandment was to Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.  He then told them that we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

If we put God first and foremost in our lives then everything else will fall into place.  If you don’t believe me, then I challenge you to try it.  Give God the first and the best of everything you have.  Give him the first and best of your time.  Wake up 15 minutes early if you have to to spend time in Bible reading and prayer.  If you are not a morning person, then stay up 15 minutes later or take a 15 minute break in your afternoon.  Give God the first 10 percent of your income, he will bless the remaining 90 percent beyond measure.  When we put God first, God blesses the other things we do.  It’s easy for people to know what you love with your heart, soul, and mind.  This is what gets the most attention, time and money from you.

Jesus then told them that the second most important commandment is for us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.  Most of us love ourselves.  We try to make things easier on ourselves.  We do what we can to help ourselves.  God calls us to love our neighbors in the same way.  This calls us to put the needs of others before our needs.  This calls us to be a little less selfish and a little more attentive to others.

The really neat thing is that if you put God first then it helps you to want to serve others.  It makes you want to be a better person. It makes you less selfish and more attentive to others.  It makes us want to be more like Jesus.

Now here’s something else that is really neat.  If you put God first, this causes you to find it much easier to be kinder and more compassionate to others.  If you are kinder and more compassionate to others then you are not going to want to sin against them.  So if you master these greatest commandments, then the other ten are a piece of cake.    You see if we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind then we certainly are going to put no other Gods before Him, we certainly are not going to want to worship any false gods and we’d just as soon cut our tongue out as use the Lord’s name in vain.  We will want to honor God on the sabbath and in doing so keep the sabbath day holy.  If we honor our heavenly Father then we will certainly want to honor our earthly mother and father.

If we love our neighbor as we love ourselves, then we will have no problem abiding by the golden rule and treating others the way we want to be treated.  We will certainly not want to murder, commit adultery, steal, give false testimony against our neighbor, or covet our neighbor’s belongings.

I guess this is why the Bible tells us that love covers a multitude of sins.  When you love someone and I mean truly love them with a brotherly love then you don’t want any harm to come to them.  We are to love all people in this way.  Now granted some people are easier to love than others and some you may even have to love from a distance.  But God tells us that we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.  We are to be as good to them as we are to ourselves.

So today take a look at your priorities.  Is God truly first in your life.  Do you really love Him with all you heart, all your soul, and all your mind?  Does He get the first and the best you have to offer or does He get your leftovers?  If you are cheating God then your are cheating yourself.  If we give God first priority in our lives, He will truly bless us.  He wants to bless us.  If we show love for others, God will pour our his love and bless us.  So don’t cheat yourself out of the best God has to offer.  Make a commitment today to give God first place in your life.  You won’t be sorry you did!

Have a great day!