Two Great Commandments, Love Your God And Love Your Neighbour. How Exactly?

Jesus is stating that this is the most important of the laws; while at the same time he is summarising all the 613 laws.

How do we love the Lord, well there are many answers and many people do it in there own way. I cannot say who is right or wrong, or what method should be used; but the bible does tell us to delight in the Lord always, to cherish him, and to seek and to know him.

We all know we do not love the Lord by simply going to the church on Sunday for an hour or so, we love him by inviting him in to our hearts, into our lives, into our very being, every moment of the day, if we can.

We love him by our prayers, or songs and our good deeds to others. I love him by reading his scripture, and learning all about him and his ways, trying to find out what he wants for us.

We love him through meditation, worship, and going to retreats or on pilgrimages. We can also love him by staying at home and doing his will locally. But we cannot presume to love God without drinking from his cup; the cup of suffering from which we build our relationship with him.

And in that relationship we learn to love the things he loves; like mercy, forgiveness, and giving oneself beyond the call of duty. We also develop a sense of justice, and start looking for ways we can help those less fortunate than ourselves.

But this is a very strong commandment because in it we see the 5 “all’s”. We are to love him with all our hearts, all our souls, all our minds, and all our strength, all the time. We are to love him with every part of our being, in every situation, in everything we do.

This is the greatest commandment of all, and yet it should be obvious that is impossible to keep.

Did I personally follow that commandment this week? No way; I am still fed up of apologising to people. I fell short by a mile; so you may ask, how can I justify what I just said, easy, we are not under law, we are under grace.

We have a saviour and redeemer called Jesus, and he will forgive our behaviour, our shortcomings, if we ask him with a true heart, confessing our sins.

I am sorry for being ill tempered this week, but I know he will deal with it; and I am sure Christine will add her bit.

Verse 31: ‘The second commandment is this: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’

Oh no, this is worse! Not only have we to love God who we cannot see but we are to love our neighbours who we can see; and worse, neighbours can be translated as enemies. Just how exactly are we to love our enemies?

When things are going well for us, I dare say, if forced we can like our enemies a wee bit, but as soon as life challenges us, the enemies are the first to get it. After all, they are the enemy; they are opposing us.

But notice Jesus is not being original here:

Confucius said, “Do onto others what you would not they should do unto you.”

The Buddhist writings say, “Hurt no other with that which pains yourself.”

Islam says, “Not one of you is a believer, until he loves for his brother, what he loves from himself.”