What is the Greatest Commandment?

Matthew 22:36-38 - "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.”

I remember a decade ago, I had a Tuesday night Bible Study group at our church and I found this statement that I was going to use for the focus of the lessons on “Loving your neighbor as yourself’ that year: “Understand that happiness is not based on possessions, power or prestige, but on relationships with other people you love and respect”, based on God’s design and creation. To my startled amazement, one young lady stated that she wanted it all! She did not have the ability to separate them into the proper and balanced priority; she did not see or know the source of “true” happiness, and that is a major problem in our society today. We worship other gods ... idols! Do we recognize them?

Exodus 20: 2a -"I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me." This self-centered hedonistic world says: “I want it all, and I want it now!” & “Go Big or Go Home”! Hedonism means the self-indulgent pursuit of pleasure as a “way of life”. I remember a young co-worker in my group, once told me that his philosophy was: “I see it, I want it, I get it”! There’s that “I” problem again! Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with ambition, possessions, position, power, beauty, money, etc., until these become the over-riding focus of one’s life; their idol and their God – where their heart is. This is the point of Matthew 6, where Jesus teaches us: "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? For those who do not know God run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” What are we doing and why? Are we spending money that we don’t have, to buy things that we don’t really need, to impress people that we don’t even know or truly care about? It’s not about “Look at me!”, unless you are reflecting the image of Christ and the Kingdom of God – our purpose and goal as a Child of God. Life is not about personal gain (What’s in it for me?, as our motivation), but, in light of the mercy & grace of God towards me, “How shall I live?”, and the advancement of the kingdom of Heaven as center of attention, because God is our providence and shall provide. But will we, rather, compromise the teachings, commands and “will” of God to be viewed favorably in the eyes of the worldly that do not know Him ... to be “like” them and be “liked” by them? To care more about ourselves and what others think about us, than the Lord and what He thinks about us? Does that look like loving the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind? We need to keep “The Main Thing”, the main thing!

Daniel 5:23b – “Thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified.” The biblical definition for an "idol" is more than the dictionary definition of "an image of a deity as an object of (pagan) worship". An "idol" is anything that we put an equal or higher value than God (the One whom we owe our every lives and being). The actual root definition of idolatry is “spiritual adultery” against God. People may not outright say that they have idols (aka “other gods’) and they may not even realize that they do, but our lives prove otherwise. The temptation are always out there and we have to constantly be on guard to keep our heart, mind and soul on the Lord’s purposes to guide our lives. True peace and joy reside there, when we abide in Christ.

Genesis 2:7 - The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Nothing operates independently from the power of God. By His sovereign power, God created, sustains and governs all creation … everything. In Him, we have our lives. Do we, sometimes, lose sight of this? My cousin told me lately that our life, how we live daily, is a witness of our faith to the world around us, and must accompany our profession. How true! Christians are in the world, not of the world, meaning: “to bring the light of truth; not partake in the darkness of unbelief” … to show the love, mercy and grace of God by the “good news” of the Gospel that produces “true” happiness, through the understanding of salvation (being saved from Hell to Heaven, of righteousness (having a ‘right’ and ‘personal’ relationship with God, to holiness (set apart from fruitless, sinful lawlessness to a abundantly fruitful & rewarding life of godliness).

I read that we were created to know three worlds – the spiritual, psychological, and material worlds. These can be considered the world above us, the world within us, and the world around us. These worlds are related to the three parts of our human nature – spirit, soul and body. When you are rightly related to the material world with your body, you are healthy. When you are rightly related to the psychological world with your soul, you are happy. And when you are rightly related to the spiritual world in your spirit, you are holy. God’s aim is that, ultimately, we are to experience all three realities: health, happiness and holiness. How can we love anything more than God for all He has done, for all that He is doing and all that He is going to do for us throughout our life and into eternity? He deserves all our heart, all our soul and all our mind.

Acts 17:24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone--an image made by man's design and skill.

In Christ, Brian