#42 Oct. 19, 2015
2015 Devotional. Our goal for these weekly devotionals is to grow in humility and to grow spiritually by memorizing selected passages, putting them into context, and by applying them to our daily living. These passages are taken from: “100 Verses Every Christian Needs to Know” by Freeman-Smith. All passages are from the NIV.
Matthew 22:37-38
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and the greatest commandment.
This Old Testament command (Deut. 6:4-9) is quoted in the New Testament by Jesus in Matthew and Mark but in Luke, an expert in law asking Jesus about eternal live quotes this verse in response to Jesus answering his question with a question: “How do you Read the Law? Jesus here is using the Jewish way of teaching by asking multiple questions and in that way arriving at the answer. The expert answers correctly. Jesus responds: “do this and you will live”.
The book “100 Verses Every Christian Needs to Know” does not ask us to memorize the whole quote. I see this as an oversight because the whole passage goes together although Jesus quotes two different passages from the Old Testament. As noted above, this first law is from Deut. 6:5 but the corresponding second law is quoted from Lev. 19: 18 but it comes from a set of 10 verses commanding the correct way to treat each other (Lev.19: 9-19). We therefore think that these two commands go together and should not be separated but memorized as Jesus quotes them.
It seems to us that loving God with everything we have, while difficult, may not be as difficult as loving our neighbors as ourselves. God loves us blesses us and draws close when we draw close, but loving our neighbor takes God’s grace and His love in our lives. It is therefore that loving God while not loving our neighbor is not the love that God asks of us. These commands hang on each other just as all of Scripture, Jesus says, hangs on these two commands! Praise be to God.
© 2015 cgvw all rights reserved.
Heavenhigh 