eFollowingJesusMar16 - Greatest commandment (read Matthew 22:34-40)

   The Pharisees join the attack on Jesus, asking, "What is the greatest commandment?"  Jesus, with words that would strike any Jew as beautifully true, cites Deuteronomy 6:5 - part of the Shema, which Jews recited every morning and evening.  "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and might"

   How odd:  you shall love!  Love isn't a feeling, or a mood.  Love is a commitment, a decision.  Love can be commanded - and God demands no less than love from us!

   Instead of giving a single answer, Jesus clasps a second to the first - not second in importance, but the two being of equal rank, like two sides to a coin or two banks to a river.  "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18).  If we love God, we love others; when we love others, we love God - we love the image of God in other people.  We do not wait for emotion to overwhelm us so we will love others.  Love is commanded.  Love is permitted.  Love is invited, provided, celebrated.

   Lord, we know that everything hangs on love of You, and love of others.  I want my entire life to hang on these, and nothing else.

James

james@mpumc.org

Here is the full text of Matthew 22:34-46  -  34: But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. 35: And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, to test him. 36: "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" 37: And 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. 38: This is the great and first commandment. 39: And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40: On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets." 41: Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, 42: saying, "What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David." 43: He said to them, "How is it then that David, inspired by the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, 44: `The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, till I put thy enemies under thy feet'? 45: If David thus calls him Lord, how is he his son?" 46: And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did any one dare to ask him any more questions.

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