He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”     Matthew 22:37-40 HCSB

There are so many things we need to know these days. We need to know how to operate all these types of new technology. I remember back in the day when watching television was as simple as turning it on and going to the channel you wanted to watch. Now we stream and we have to go through the app and maybe through the genre or the search bar. We may have to sign in. It’s not so simple anymore.

We have to keep track of all these different passwords and PINs. We have to try to remember all these rules about vaccinations, social distancing, whether masks work or don’t work. There’s just so many things we must store in our brains. I don’t know about you, but my brain doesn’t seem to have enough storage for all this stuff.

This is why I am so glad that when it comes right down to it, the only thing I truly need to know is today’s Scripture passage. My first job in law enforcement was working in the office of our local Sheriff’s department. I did things like filing answering the phones and the radio that was in my office. I also helped with typing out warrants. As a criminal justice major, I took a class on the Louisiana Criminal Code of Procedure. This is a big thick book which includes every law there is to break in the state of Louisiana. It lists the requirements for someone’s actions to be considered illegal under that particular crime. It also lists sentencing requirements for each of these laws. Typing out those warrants really helped in that class because I got use to the crimes we see regularly like burglary, battery, assault and things of that nature. I became very familiar with the statutes on those laws. I would go on as a probation officer to continue to use that criminal code of procedure in pre-sentence investigations for sentencing recommendations. I didn’t have to know every single law I had this book to refer to. The book is updated each year as changes are made in the legislature.

As Christians, we don’t have to memorize the Ten Commandments. Jesus tells us right here that these two commandments cover them all. If we love the Lord with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind, we will do our best to avoid sinning against Him. If we love our neighbor as we love ourselves, we will treat them well and therefore not sin against them or at least not on purpose.

We all know that murder is a violation of the Ten Commandments as well as a violation of the law, right? If we strive to keep the Ten Commandments, we won’t have to worry about violating the law. Now of course the Bible tells us that to have hatred toward someone is as committing murder in God’s eyes (Matthew 5:21-22), so we have to be careful about that. But if you love others as you love yourself you won’t have hatred against them.

If you don’t want to memorize all the laws and ordinances of the city, parish or county, state and federal government, I suggest that you just love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind. Put God first. Then put others second. We love ourselves a great deal so if we love others as we love ourselves, we will be good to them.

Give Jesus first place in your heart. Trust in Him and obey Him. Love others as you love yourself. This applies to even those that we consider to be unlovable. In doing this you will be keeping God’s law and man’s law.

Now this may not cover traffic offenses like parking and speeding but will hopefully help you to avoid things like road rage.

If you remember today’s Scripture passage and obey it, you won’t have to remember all those laws. Unfortunately, I have no help to offer when it comes to passwords and PINs. You are on your own for those.

Have a great day!