Father, not many give You credit these days, and even though we have lost our way on many fronts, I give You praise for all You have enabled our country to do to bring honor and glory to Your Name and Kingdom. We were who we were because Your hand was with us. May we once again humbly bow before You. Amen.
Mark 12:28-34 (<<click to read the passage)
We have this awful tendency to make everything so extremely complicated but in reality…it’s not that difficult. My Life Application Study Bible says that “by Jesus’ time, the Jews had accumulated hundreds of laws – 613 by one historian’s count.”
That’s a lot with which to keep up! And the religious leaders of His day didn’t just expect scholarly types to abide by them but everyone who considered themselves a Jew was to abide by them, as well!
Many today struggle trying to be good enough. Countless followers of Christ diligently work at keeping all their “do good” plates spinning – they don’t dare let any fall! Numerous individuals outside the Body of Christ, don’t even try – too many dos and don’ts, too much to keep track of. They just feel like they would never be able to rack up enough “good” points to balance out all the “bad” points they’ve accrued over the entirety of their lives.
We make it complicated but…it’s not that difficult.
Jesus, our Lord, and Savior, when asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” (v28b) basically condensed all the dos and don’ts to four words – love God and love others. Now it’s a challenge to flesh those four words out but it’s is by no means undoable.
First of all, He accepts us right where we are – no self-improvements required. He loves us. He knows us. He totally understands us. (He did make us, after all!) That, in itself, gives us a starting point to love Him! And that then gives us a great starting point to love others!
Here is what the Amplified Bible footnote has to say about love:
The key to understanding this and other statements about love is to know that this love (the Greek word agape) is not so much a matter of emotion as it is of doing things for the benefit of another person, that is, having an unselfish concern for another and a willingness to seek the best for another.
If we apply this concept to our love for God and others, everything else falls into place. Let’s get to lovin’!
July 4th, 2019, Thurs, 9:49 pm
