The two greatest commandments
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus gives us the 2 most important commandments to follow and to be honest for most of us they are the hardest 2 commandments to follow. Let’s take a look at these 2 commandments:
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. - Matthew 22:36-39 RSV 2CE
When reading these verses we have to be honest with ourselves whether we truly love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. That type of love requires us to put Him before everything else in our lives. Jesus says in Matthew 10 we must love him more than our parents and our children. You might be thinking “that can’t be right, Jesus wouldn’t ask us to love him more than our own children, would He?”. Jesus States in Matthew 10:37 this exactly.
He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; - Matthew 10:37
I understand this can be a hard pill to swallow but we must remember that Jesus loved us so much He willingly was crucified on a cross, the worst form of death so that we may be forgiven of our sins and share in His kingdom. By knowing that He loves us more than we could ever know, we must also realize that He loves our parents and children more than we could ever love them. When we fully put God above everything we are trusting Him fully with ourselves and our families.
We should be examining ourselves and seeing if we are truly loving God with our whole heart, soul, and mind. We should be looking for things in our lives that we put before God and do our best to either moderate those things-if not eliminate them if possible. For example, this past weekend I wanted to go watch the Houston Texans play in the playoffs, but since I’m doing Exodus 90 as part of the disciplines, I could not watch sports. I tried to figure out multiple ways to beat the system where I could watch the game and not break a rule. I came to realize why don’t I make that type of effort for prayer time? I’ll spend 3 hours watching a NFL game but struggle to make 30 minutes for prayer. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with watching sports and think a lot of good comes out of it. But if we are you to truly love God then we must give him all of us and as much time as possible, not our scrappy leftovers. When I say as much time as possible I’m talking about the hour you waste doom scrolling on FB, watching a series, playing video games, watching sports all day everyday. If we were to switch those out with Bible readings and prayer we would be moving in the right direction of fully loving God.
The second greatest commandment we get from Jesus is to love your neighbor as yourself. In today’s current society with new self help books out every week and articles promoting that you should “always put yourself first”, can make this more difficult. Jesus asks us for self denial which is opposite of what we are taught today. When denying ourselves we are no longer living for our will but the will of God. Self denial is not self hatred but just the opposite it is the fullness of self love. By denying ourselves and serving God and our neighbors we are allowing God to dwell in us and since God is love then in ourselves we have the fullness of love (self love). We must also be cautious of having false humility by doing good works to feel proud of ourselves instead of doing what is already required of us. We don’t give to our neighbor to feel better about ourself but to spread the love that was given to us by Jesus to others. We should never take pride or credit for helping or giving anything when it was the lord who gave you all that you have to give.
By truly following the first commandment we are already taking a step of self denial by putting God above ourselves and our desires. The next step is to love your neighbor even if your neighbor is an enemy of yours. We are called to love and forgive everyone as God loves and forgives you. We are called to give and help anyone who asks for help as Jesus tells us in Matthew 25:31-46. By loving everyone you are also fulfilling the first commandment to love God as He loves every single one of us. God is love and we must have love and give love to everyone in order to have God. The passage in 1 John 3:15-17 captures this.
15 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love remains in death.
16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
17 But if any one has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?
Jesus calls for us to be servants of others as He came to serve us by giving us life for us. We must always remember to serve and love everyone, for everyone is a creation of God. These 2 commandments are inseparable for that reason, for us to love God we must love all that he does and created as well.
Say this prayer for charity to ask Jesus that you may be able to love more.
O my Jesus, you know well that I love you; but I do not love you enough; O grant that I may love you more. O love that burns ever and never fails, my God, You, who are charity itself, enkindle in my heart that divine fire which consumes the saints which transforms them into You. Amen.
