Title The Greatest Commandment/Matthew 22:34-40
Contents Jesus was asked a question by a lawyer. Which commandment in the law is the greatest? It's a question.
Then Jesus said, “The first commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and the second is like it.” He said, “Love your neighbor as yourself. You said it was a command.
We will be seriously challenged to hear the Lord's answer like this.
It would be difficult to love God that much, but because we have to love our neighbor as ourselves.
But we must keep in mind. Obviously these two commandments are the first commandments, and they are the statutes of the law and the prophets.
By code, we mean the overarching storyline. In other words, the fact that it becomes a subject. That is, the cry of the prophets or the core of the law can be summarized in these two commandments.
Therefore, if we neglect these words, it is the result of violating the whole commandment, and God's earnest hope revealed through the Old and New Testaments will be mercilessly broken.
In Luke 10, what must a lawyer do to gain eternal life? To the question asked, Jesus induced an answer by asking what was written in the law. Since you are a lawyer, would you have answered the law well?
As the verse of today's text says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself." Do, and you will live."
If so, are you not downgrading the good and true Lord to a possessor of a very mean personality?
Keep in mind that the Lord still answers those who take the path to eternal life seriously.
Of course, this lawyer was asking a question to test Jesus.
However, this test was also a test to see if Jesus knew what the most precious things in the law were, and not as a test of the way to eternal life.
At least, how much would a lawyer have longed for eternal life? Do you think our Lord will turn away from the truth so harshly to such a person? The Lord truly answered the way to eternal life seriously.
In Mark 12, the scribe asks a question. Again, the question is what is the first commandment.
Jesus answered the same with the words of today's text. But what is truly surprising is that this scribe is correcting the words of the Lord. And he answered, "That love for God and for neighbor is better than all burnt offerings and other sacrifices."
The Lord recognized this scribe as a very wise man. He immediately praised him, saying, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."
In fact, for a scribe at the time, it was a very conscious answer.
Those who used to value the provisions of the law and the form of the sacrificial ceremony themselves, are now more concerned with the state of mind and life.
If the Lord was thrilled by these scribes that the kingdom of God is not far away, how else can we explain the way of eternal life and the way of those who possess the kingdom of heaven?
It never is.
If you think it is different, it is because unlike this scribe, you are far from heaven and you have misunderstood the reality of faith and its contents.
In other words, it is a state of being outside the door to the truth of Christianity.
Matthew 5:19 says, "Whoever sets aside one of the least of the commandments and teaches others in the same way will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, and whoever practices and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Let's compare it with
It is not known exactly what the smallest commandment is. But if you break that very little commandment, you will become the least of heaven. That means it doesn't look too small in the original text.
So, aren't we already familiar with the first commandment, the greatest commandment? If he breaks this first commandment, what place in heaven can he expect and what glory can he expect? Keep in mind that this is not really just a literal comparison.
It is the constant teaching of the Lord, and it explains the way to eternal life.
We have been thinking about whether the words of the text are the only way to eternal life.
Now, let's think about why it is only when we become a person of love that we can become a person of eternal life.
Faith, that is, faith, will never accomplish one's will, but will be submission to the object of faith and faith.
Therefore, the Lord also said in Matthew 7:21 that not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven.
The Lord who became the model of faith, the truth and life, the Lord who became the way, always wanted the Father's will to be done and prayed for the Father's will to be done even in the face of death on the cross.
As we, who must seek the will of the living God now, should we not discern where His will is?
Isn't that meaning expressed in the law and the teachings of the prophets? That is, in the words of the law and the prophets
When this will is fulfilled, will our devotion, evangelism, and almsgiving all be sincere, and will they not be acceptable to God?
As 1 John 3:10 says, "He who does not love his brother does not belong to God." God's earnest will is to love one another.
Let's try to understand the content of love, at least within this range. This is because the fruits of love appear in many different ways.
It can be the content of 1 Corinthians 13, and because we love, we can pray for the sick and preach the gospel.
The strength of a Christian's true obedience to God's will is that his love for God must be thorough. Isn't this thorough love with all your heart, mind, strength, character, and life?
These dimensions change our lives by:
Only God can bring joy to the heart. Worldly riches or honor cannot be his pleasure.
Also, a momentary bliss cannot be a joy.
It is because the soul knows all too well that anything in the world is an obstacle to communion with God who comes fully in the light.
He is a person who desires that only God can fill his soul and heart because only God is his desire.
Therefore, he never stumbles upon anything in the world, nor can he take away his thoughts and hearts. Like David or Samson, who had their thoughts and hearts taken away, there is no reason to fall into temptation and fail.
He was truly full of Christ.
He turned and became a child, and he is a pure and kind person. God is his only joy, so he will never be disappointed. Even if no one else knows.
This relationship also leads to a stage of mature faith, a secret person who can keep the left hand from knowing what the right hand is doing.
He goes further and is willing to forgive those who curse and persecute him, and instead he can pray.
This is because his heart has become poor and made pure. And because love purifies his heart from jealousy, malice, anger, and all unkindness.
So now he is clothed with mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, love. That is, we are clothed with Christ Jesus.
His only wish, his only hope of life, is to do not his will, but the will of him who sent him.
Always and in all things, his only motive is not to please himself, but to please him whom his soul loves.
He has only one eye.
Because his eyes are one, he is constantly fixed on God, where there can be no darkness, and his whole life is always bright and walks in the light, as when the light of a candlestick lights a house.
For him, only God reigns as king.
His soul is filled with holiness toward the Lord, and his heart cannot be shaken, only obeying the will of God.
He loves God so much that, of course, he keeps his commandments. As the saying goes, "He who loves me will keep my commandments."
The commandment is to keep the whole, not just a part, from the smallest to the greatest.
He can truly avoid whatever God forbids and do whatever pleases God.
To love your neighbor as yourself is truly impossible without loving God from your heart to your soul.
Since God is invisible and the object of absolute faith to us, many people are confident about God's love or say they can do it.
However, few people can confidently answer this command to love your neighbor as yourself. Only until you love God with all your strength, will, and character.
It can be seen that only total love for God can achieve love for neighbor.
Why should the Christian life be poor?
Because it is a religion that loves your neighbor as yourself.
God will never want us to live wanting and needy. But what makes us want to pursue a life of poverty and poverty?
It is true that even in this day and age there are so many hungry and sick and Lazarus-like crowds waiting for crumbs to fall from the rich's table, that he can never luxuriate in even a little thing, nor be able to overspend.
He is most afraid of accumulating wealth for himself or of living a luxurious life.
No matter what position we are in, even if he is now a president, a minister, a president of a large corporation, or the head of a large church, it is a fact that a person who has truly awakened to the love of God and love of neighbor will strive to lead a life of poverty.
Who can heap coals of charcoal in his chest?
Like Zacchaeus, a person of love does not accumulate wealth, and can scatter and give alms like Zacchaeus.
I don't think of love for neighbor as just sharing material things, but the writer of 1 John also said, "How can you be a person with God's love if you don't help your neighbors in need with the world's riches? (1 John 3:17)
Our ability to love our neighbor as well as material things is indeed to forgive seventy seven times, to embrace and to understand.
Moreover, he is freed from envy and criticism of his brother.
Dear saints, how fundamental is today's text emphasizing love for God and love for neighbor, and is it the true truth of faith?
Shouldn't we be moving from the faith we say, Lord, to this path of truth and life?
Isn't the place you're staying in too dark right now? Isn't that a physical place?
With the help of the Holy Spirit, I hope you will ascend to this world of light and this world of love.
It is our weak life, but we definitely believe that we can do it if the Lord allows it. End.