Love, Day Two

Jesus said to him,

"'You shall love the LORD your God

with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.'"

This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like it:

'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"

On these two commandments

hang all the Law and the Prophets."

Matthew 22:37-40, NKJV

People always want to know what the biggest sin is, as if not committing it is going to be their ticket into heaven. I've heard it over and over again, people who point to the "greater sins" and say, "See, I'm not that bad. I haven't done..." And then they fill in the blank. They don't lie. Much. They don't steal. Unless it's cheating on their taxes. They don't commit adultery or murder. Even if they think about it from time to time. They're just not that bad. But they try to uphold their goodness without really understanding what the standard of measurement is, and that pleasing God and obtaining eternal life is not about following a specific set of rules, but rather about the condition of the heart.

Jesus was dealing with people whose lives were completely absorbed with following rules and regulations. They had 10 commandments, identified 623 supportive and explanatory rules, and developed volumes and volumes of commentary on each of the commandments, so that they knew and understood exactly how to adhere to the strictest point of the law...and still do what they wanted to do. So they kept coming to Jesus, these scholars and theologians and followers of the law, wanting him to identify for them what was the most important commandment to follow. Really, they wanted to trap Jesus with His own words. Instead, Jesus turned it around on them with an unexpected answer.

The greatest commandment is love.

First of all, love God. After that, love everybody else. That's it. That's all you have to do.

I can imagine their thought process. Wait a minute. What? Love? What about Thou Shalt Not? What about not having idols or worshiping demons? What about not working on Saturday and honoring God's name? What about obeying your parents? What about not lying, stealing, killing, adulterating, and coveting? What about our rules?

And Jesus said the greatest commandment is love. Loving God, loving people. Those two statements summarize 10 commandments, 39 books, and 1500 years of sacred writing and teaching. Love. That's it.

But what about blasphemy? If you love God, you're not going to blaspheme.

What about idolatry? If you love God, you're not going to worship something else.

What about murder? What about adultery? If you love people, you're not going to kill them, or sleep with their spouse.

What about lying? Love. Stealing? Love. Jealousy? Envy? Greed? Love.

I always marvel. We started out with one rule: Don't eat the fruit. We didn't keep it. God added another, 1500 years later: Don't kill each other. We didn't keep it. God gave the ten commandments. Failure times ten to the nth degree. And now we're back to one again: Love. People complain all the time about the laws and rules and regulations of God, when they don't understand the simplicity of God's requirement.

As one philosophical song-writer of the last century wrote: All you need is love.