“Everything Hangs on This”
By
Bishop Melvin L. Maughmer, Jr
PRAYER
SCRIPTURE: - Matthew 22:37-40 “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets”.
OPENING: - The other day my good friend Pastor Stan Roberts the Presiding Apostle of Restoratione Ministries of Greenville North Carolina Posted the following: - Some leaders in the church have been trying so hard to reach the world that we’ve stopped pleasing God. We’ve been trying so hard to reach the world that we’ve stopped allowing God to reach us. We’ve replaced Holy Ghost fire of the church with manufactured fog machines and light shows. We’ve replaced conviction with comfort; we’ve replaced holiness with hype. We’ve turned sanctuaries into stages and pulpits into platforms. We have replaced the holy dance of David with the boots on the ground of the world.
We’re trying to fit in with the culture instead of standing apart from it. We want influence without integrity. But the true church knows that there has to be a difference between the world and the house of God!
Practical Application: The true church needs to evaluate what she has allowed that God never authorized. What music are you listening to? What philosophies are you agreeing with just to seem relevant?
The Lord is telling the church to Consecrate yourself again. Shut down anything that feeds compromise, and start feeding your spirit the Word of God. Let your personal altar burn again!
Understand family, once consecration is gone, compromise creeps in. And it doesn't come through the back door—it walks boldly through the front door, right into the pulpit.
Leaders, Pastors, Teachers and Proclaimers of the Simplicity of the Gospel: when we blur the lines between sin and salvation, we are no longer a benefit to the kingdom, we no longer guide the lost—we confuse the ones we are meant to lead and draw.
I had to tell him to preach it and confirm what he was saying was what God was also saying in my spirit as I was working on this very message. A lot of the church of today is a culture that knows theology but has no affection, they have perfected praise on Sunday morning but can’t demonstrate passion on Sunday afternoon as they pass the one standing on the corner holding a sign begging for something to eat.
LISTEN CLOSELY: - I have often said that the most important part of a service is the worship, and I still believe that however there is something that will negate the worship if it is not there. As a matter of fact, every page of the Bible, every move of the Holy Ghost, every instance of speaking in tongues, every prophet, pastor, preacher, doctrine, and definition of Holiness hangs on this and that is Love.
1 Corinthians 13, which is called the Love chapter says in vs 1&2 “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing”. Without Love I am NOTHING. Then vs 4-12 describes how Love behaves and vs #13 sums it up by saying “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity”. WATCH THIS:- So you can have it all together, preach like no other, sing like an angel, have the best praise team, the best light show and smoke machines, draw the biggest crowds, be culturally relevant, socially acceptable, but if you don’t have love your nothing more than a tinkling brass and a sounding cymbal or to put it in today language a noise maker.
So often we have those that are loud and clap hard for sermons but will not even offer someone less fortunate then them a drink of water, failing to understand that the loudest worshipper is not the one with the loudest voice but the one who offers Love in silence when no one else is watching – Matthew 6:4 says, “That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly”.
TEXT: - The 2 greatest commandments of Jesus are: - Jesus was asked the question trying to entrap him what is the greatest commandment and He answered. Matthew 22:37-40 “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets”. Understand he didn’t say the greatest commandments are don’t lie, steal, cheat, although they are important, but He reached in and touched the very depths of our souls, He touch the essence of our emotions and gave these commandments, because to truly understand and live these commandments it causes you to have more than an agreement with scripture by shaking your head and saying amen, but it is going to cost you something. Understand real Love moves, bleeds, is sacrificial and cost if your version of Christianity doesn’t cost you something then you need to seriously ask yourself is this real. If your version of Christianity doesn’t lead to radical love, then it is simply hollow and not Holy.
Verse 37 says, “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind”.
Question: - What does it really mean to Love God with all? Not just on Sunday morning when your favorite praise song is being sung, not just when the spirit is flowing and people are being slain in the spirit, but what about in the quite silence of loneliness on Wednesday afternoon when the high of Sunday service has dissipated and you find yourself stuck in traffic, or in times of suffering, or grief. Because Jesus didn’t say love the Lord thy God when it is comfortable or convenient or when it feels good, but He said with all He was referring to Deuteronomy 6:4 “The Shema” where it is a covenant call of total surrender unlike church today where performance has replace passion, holiness is replaced with hype, and conviction is replaced with comfort we have normalized giving God just a portion we talk about Him more than we talk to Him, we will agree and say Amen but fail to align to His word.
HEART: - To love the Lord the God with all means your emotions, your thoughts, your deepest desires belong to Him. He is not just a priority in your life, He is not just first, He is the center, He is your everything, you don’t long for Him for what He gives but you hunger for Him for who He is. When I hurt and I am numb because I didn’t get what I asked for I still fully worship Him and like Job said honestly and openly say yet will I trust Him. That is Loving Him with all my heart because my flesh wanted to be satisfied, my emotions wanted to be caressed, my desires needed to be pacified but yet will I trust Him, yet will I love Him with all my heart.
SOUL: - With all my soul this is deeper than my identity, this is your will, your essence, your make up, your eternity. It means nothing defines you more than being His, not your title, position, job, sexuality, pain I belong and Love God. To love the Lord thy God with all your soul is to say my purpose, my desire, my pleasures, my pain so when you are faced with temptation you stand and say will this make me happy or will this make me Holy. Understand you are in this flesh and sometimes you will fall Romans 3:23 says we all come short of the glory of God, but real Love will cause you not to be like Jonah but will cause you to run to Him.
MIND: - With all my Mind this deals with Spiritual Warfare because we can’t let our thoughts wonder and drift aimlessly, nursing secret fantasies like they are harmless or insignificant or just innocent. We must bring every wayward thought under subjection bringing them in alignment with the Word of God until you change the way you think. Loving God with all your mind means you fill your mind things of the Kingdom not things of the world, you concentrate on His faithfulness and not on your fears.
There is an old proverb, not the Bible Proverbs but an old saying that says “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop” meaning that a mind that is not occupied with productive or constructive thoughts is more prone to negative, harmful or mischievous thoughts and actions.
The devil tries to make you feel as though God doesn’t care or God doesn’t hear, or that God has left you all alone and your mind has become a battleground but when you have saturated your mind with the things of God and brought every imagination under subjection by loving God with all your mind then the TRUTH of His Word reigns and Love Wins.
This is a Supernatural kind of Love that is impossible without the Holy Ghost yet it is the 1st and greatest commandment -WHY – because God never wanted a robotic obedience but free will communication, He wanted relationship not ritual, passion not pretense, Holiness not hype.
WATCH THIS: - Understand Loving God with all doesn’t mean that you always have it all together, it doesn’t mean that you are always on the mountain top, it doesn’t mean that every minute of every day is a hallelujah shouting good time but it means surrendered and humbled even when your emotions are tired, frustrated, pushed to their limits with all means everything stays before Him even you can’t trace Him.
Verse #38 “This is the first and great commandment”. Do you say no to sin because you love God? Do you forgive other because you love God? Do you trust Him? That is the ultimate test with all your heart, soul, and mind not just on Sunday morning or when everything is going well, but in every thought, every situation, every desire, every purpose, and not in just performance.
Verse #39 “And the second is like it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”. The 1st thing we must understand about the 2nd commandment is the phrase (is like it) this mean equal to, there is no separation, literally the 2nd commandment will ultimately let you know if the 1st commandment is real in your life or if you are just pretending and preforming.
Questions: - What if the greatest proof that you love God isn’t your shout during Sunday morning service but what you sacrifice when no one is looking. What if loving God isn’t soft, sweet, gentle, comfortable, or sentimental but brutal, relentless, and bloody at times. What if the truest and deepest expressions of your love for God isn’t in the words you sing but in the battle you fight on a daily basis to say YES Lord when every fiber in your very being screams NO – because Loving God is not an emotional feeling but a battle fought between the flesh and the spirit Romans 7:15-25 explains this so eloquently. However, we have become comfortable with mediocrity and made loving God an emotional feeling limited to a performance of raised hands and tear filled eyes and my being moved by Him during Sunday morning service when the Bible says, “If you Love me keep commandments” John14:15, not if you love me the sermon will make you shout or I just want you to be happy.
Understand love without obedience is not love, it’s just flattery. When Noah was told to build the ark and it had never rained before it wasn’t an emotional encounter he had he obeyed, when Abraham took Isaac up Mt Moriah it wasn’t a song that proved his devotion it was a knife, when Hosea went and purchased his adulterous wife from slavery, adultery, and prostitution it wasn’t romantic it was costly, humiliating, and Holy. Real love doesn’t feel good all the time sometimes it bleeds Jesus said I love you not with words but with whips, thorns, nails, and a wood cross.
So our love must reflect that love for God in sacrificial obedience because our flesh will resist it desires comfort, ease, safety, pleasure, applause but God will cause you to take risk and sometimes bring you to loneliness and loss, forgiveness when you want vengeance.
1 John 4:20 says, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen”.
Verse #39 “And the second is like it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”. So often the church places differences based upon doctrinal interpretations, music preferences, worship styles, political affiliations and other superficial meaningless things and it does nothing but bring division. Real love for God will always bring real love for people regardless of differences, you may not agree nor do you close your eyes to truth but you show love extend patience, listen, forgive, comfort in love, share burdens, choose compassion instead of criticism not just for people you know but for strangers, enemies those that don’t look like you, those that vote different than you, those that go to different churches than you, those that are dirty, those that don’t believe there is a God, those that are transgender, those that are strung out on drugs -WHY – BECAUSE it is your opportunity to imitate Christ.
WATCH THIS: - To love thy neighbor as thyself isn’t about who they are but about who you are! It is about conviction, not convenience, passion not performance. When Jesus is questioned about “who is my neighbor”? in Luke 10 He doesn’t respond by giving a description categorizing a neighbor, but He gives a parable of a certain man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves who stripped him of his raiment and wounded him and left him half dead”. Religious people who could quote the Bible fluently, knew doctrine, were theological without fault, no doubt just left the church where they had perfected praise service, the smoke machine and light show was spectacular, the preacher pastor apostle bishop priest was on the big screen on 3 different campuses in simulcast, they said they loved God with all their heart, soul and mind but did nothing but walk on by the man pretending not to see his need then came a Samaritan a person who was culturally, spiritually, educationally, doctrinally, politically, socially, racially, economically different stops has compassion, binds his wounds pays the cost, takes responsibility for any other expense and Jesus says “Go and do likewise”. So, loving your neighbor is NOT about who they are but all about who you are. You love them because you understand that you were once yourself beaten and stripped lying on the side of the road of sin and Jesus Christ came by cleaned you healed your sin sick soul forgave you of your trespasses, changed your way walking, changed your way of talking, gave you a new attitude, made you a new creature so now you see real love in humanity in every soul even if that soul is loud, obnoxious, offensive, totally opposite of everything we stand for because if I love God with all my heart soul and mind that doesn’t mean I will love when they agree with me but because I love God.
Closing: - Verse #40 “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets”. The entire Bible from Genesis 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. To Revelation 22 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all Amen. Every law from Mt. Sinai, every Psalm, every prophet, every doctrine, every act of grace, every show of mercy hang of these two commandments not rituals or rites, not pretense or performance, but love God and love thy neighbor as thyself. From this flows every command, every judgment, every act of grace, every act of redemption, every show of mercy is rooted in love.
You can do all the church stuff possible, you can hold theological degrees, you can speak in tongues, prophecy, perform miracles, preach like no other, pay tithes, draw gigantic crowds with enticing words and spectacular charisma, but if you don’t have love, you are nothing.
The Pharisees knew the scriptures but Jesus said they were whitewashed tombs filled with dead men’s bones because they didn’t love the people, they were more concerned with performance then passion sure they knew the words but not the heart and when the word was made flesh they hated Him and accused Him of blasphemy proving just how dangerous a loveless religion is.
Don’t be a victim of a loveless religion.
Bishop Melvin L. Maughmer, Jr.
