The Priority of Love
Matthew 22:35-40 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37 Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
The Greatest Thing you can do is to love. In the famous love chapter of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, it says that faith, hope, and love are present, but the greatest is love.
Once we respond to God’s love for us and begin to love Him back, we find that we are also able to love the other people in our lives as well.
1. Love God
-It is one thing for a person to set out and try to do this; it is another thing entirely when we discover that we cannot. Loving God is what we were made for, yet sometimes it seems like we don’t even come close to really knowing Him or loving Him.
1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.
-And yet just being loved by God is not enough. We must receive His love and allow it to change us. Then we become capable of the kind of love that comes from Him!
1 John 4:10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
-See, sin and selfishness rob us of our ability to love. But when we receive God’s love and what He did for us through Jesus and His death on a cross, it changes us!
John 1:11-12 11 He [Jesus] came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God--
-We’re talking about something more than just trying to avoid hell. Loving God is all about entering into a relationship (like a parent/child relationship) with the God who created us. And like any good relationship, this relationship is built on trust. But how can we trust someone if we do not know them? The more we get to know God through reading His words to us (the Bible), the more we will develop a trust in who He is. And when we put our trust completely in Him, He changes us on the inside and gives us the capacity to love Him back!
-Loving God is spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical. As we learn to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we begin to discover His heart for us! This is more than being loyal to a set of religious beliefs. It is more than following a set of rules and trying to be a person of good morals. It is a real give and take relationship with a real live God!
-What’s the greatest thing you could ever do? Love the Lord your God!
2. Love your Neighbor
-The Good Samaritan story is part of Luke’s account of the Greatest Commands (Love God / Love your neighbor, Luke 10). The question changes from who is my neighbor to what kind of neighbor am I to someone in need? Jesus asks, “Who was a neighbor to the man who had been robbed, beaten and left for dead? The one who showed mercy to him. Who can you show mercy to in your life?
-I studied under someone who had lived and studied in Israel and had become quite familiar with the Hebrew language and traditions. He brought out another perspective to this verse, Love your neighbor as yourself. In English the word “as” lets us know that something is being compared to another. We assume that the comparison is all about how we love ourselves and how we love our neighbor. However, this Hebrew scholar argued that the comparison was really between ourselves and our neighbor. So the idea would be, “Love your neighbor who is like yourself.”
-We’re really not all that different. Regardless of the color of your skin, or your family history, or how wealthy or poor you are, we were all made in the image of God! That is what gives us value. When we display hatred and wish harm on one another, we must be careful, because we might be lashing out at God’s image in our neighbor. Love your neighbor who really is like you – frail, weak, prone to make mistakes, sometimes fearful, sometimes stubborn, but loved by God and made in the image of God! Do not despise or treat with contempt those who bear God’s image. Sometimes God’s image is difficult to see in the midst of our failures and stubbornness. But if we will respond to His love for us, not only will His image become more visible in us, but we will find that loving our neighbor is not an impossible task! God, who lives in those who love Him back, already loves our neighbor and is helping us to do the same.
-Love God! Love your neighbor!
3. Love your Family
-One would think that loving your family would not only be logical (even if for no other reason than protecting your interests), but it would also be the easiest thing to do. Yet, we find families that do not seem to love one another. We find families in such disarray that they lash out at each other with all the venom of a rattlesnake! Why do we lash out at those closest to us?
-The Bible has a lot to say about family relationships.
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her
Ephesians 5:22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
Ephesians 5:28 He who loves his wife loves himself.
Ephesians 5:33 a wife must respect her husband.
Ephesians 6:1-4 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 "Honor your father and mother"-- which is the first commandment with a promise-- 3 "that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth." 4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
-Families should be showing love, respect, honor, and obedience. But we see and sometimes live exactly the opposite all too often.
-How can we change? Again, we have to go back to loving God. When we receive His love for us, it changes us and teaches us to love unselfishly. Nearly every family problem revolves around selfishness. “I MUST HAVE MY WAY!” Granted, that is all that some have ever known because it is all they’ve ever seen or heard.
-When we learn to love by receiving God’s love, we begin to realize that there is no room for selfishness in our hearts. Not if we want to follow Jesus!
-So instead of fighting, arguing, demanding, pushing, and striving for our own way, let’s honor the Lord by loving the people we live with.
Colossians 3:8-10 8 But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
-God’s image in you should get bigger and brighter. Living for ourselves will distort and diminish His image in us.
Colossians 3:12-14 12 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
-This is how you can love your family!
4. Love Yourself
-Sometimes we can get so down on ourselves for our failures and weaknesses that we begin to base our identity and our sense of value on our worst moments when we fail miserably. God wants to change that false sense of identity in us. He wants us to begin to see ourselves the way He does. Unfortunately, some of you think that God has a very low opinion of you. This may stem from the lack of a father’s love in your life. Or it may come from rejection that you’ve felt from others. Whatever the cause, please know that God wants to heal your heart and mind and help you change.
-Quite often people tend to treat others the way they feel about themselves. If they do not like who they are and fail to see the value of God’s image within them, then they will pass that negativity on to everyone around them.
-However, we don’t come to love ourselves because we are so great. We come to appreciate who we are because our Maker is so great! When we allow Him to change us and help us become who He created us to be, then we begin to see the whole world in a new light!
Conclusion: Love God, Love your neighbor, Love your family, and Love yourself. If you want to ask God’s help in one or more of these areas today, I know He is willing to give you all the help you need. Just remember which one is the greatest – loving God.
-Today, if you don’t have a relationship with God, you can start one simply by talking to Him and telling Him what you are feeling. The Bible says that God is near to all who call on Him, and whoever calls on the Lord’s name will be saved. As you call on God, Romans 10 shows us 2 things that need to happen: Confess Jesus as your Lord, and Believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. If you will do that, God will change your heart and make you a new person on the inside. That really is the starting place. There may be a lot of damage in your other relationships that needs to be mended, but with God’s help you can do it. Apologize, don’t be stubborn or selfish, forgive, let it go, honor, respect, obey, love one another the way Christ loves you.
