Sunday Devotional - The Greatest Commandment
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For the past few weeks, we’ve been in Matthew 22. It’s still the Tuesday before Jesus’ crucifixion on Friday, and the Herodians, Sadducees, and Pharisees (all enemies of each other) have been teaming up in order to trap Jesus. The Herodians ganged up on Him asking about the tax to Caesar, the Sadducees ganged up on Him asking about the resurrection, and so far, Jesus is astonishing the crowds listening with His wise and unequaled ability to answer the difficult questions. Upon seeing this, the Pharisees break for a group huddle, Matthew 22:34 tells us that “when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together.” Umm, timeout ref- we’re losing here and need a team huddle.
So, after the huddle break, it looks like they send in their star player. Verse 35 tells us that a lawyer from them spoke up to test Jesus. Now this is not the attorney type lawyer that you and I might usually think of in today’s day and age. No, this is the book worm of all book worms, this is the guy that has spent his whole life studying God’s law- for all we know, he probably has memorized the entire books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, as well as the book of Psalms and additional books from the prophets. If you had a question about what was written in scripture, He was the answer guy. He could tell you what it says, and also give an appropriate interpretation.
So, they send in this MVP lawyer, and instead of having him ask Jesus a complex, assumed difficult question, they have him ask Jesus a simple question, one for which there was probably already a determined, standardized answer that most of the religious leaders had for some time now agreed upon. The question is: What is God’s greatest commandment in the Law? (Matt.22:36) And Jesus answered the question as they themselves would have, there’s no surprise here, He says: “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 foremost commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 22:37-40)
In Luke we have recorded another student of the law, who had previously responded to Jesus with this same answer, in answering the question of “What does one have to do to inherit eternal life?” But this student also added to love the LORD with all your strength. And upon this answer, Jesus said that he had answered correctly. (Luke 10:25-28) So I think this was the commonly understood answer amongst the religious leaders, an answer that even Jesus Himself didn’t disagree with. Now Jesus definitely had a different perspective than the religious leaders of what it looked like to love the Lord God with all heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love neighbor as self. The religious leaders’ living out of these principles, the application of them was a bit twisted and much of Jesus’ ministry was spent trying to help them see what it should really look like.
If I were going to try to guess what the religious leaders’ error was in the application of these commands, I might say that they better loved Him with their mind and strength, but not with their heart and soul. They could have possibly been described as obsessive-compulsive box checkers, whose hearts had drifted from loving the LORD. Some of us might be prone to drift that same way as the Pharisees. We want to check the right boxes: attend church- Check (for some of you it’s probably driving you crazy that you can’t check that box right now) Read a verse for the day- check. Pray a prayer upon awaking, before meal times, and at bedtime- check… check check check… check. Tithe 10% of my wages- check. Try to sin less- cheeeeck. And we go through the motions, yet something still doesn’t quite feel right. Perhaps there’s a love for the LORD with your mind, and with your strength- as in you know the right things to do and are trying to do them, but maybe there is a love for Him missing from your heart and soul.
And if that’s you, I would encourage you to rekindle that love for the LORD. To spend time remembering what He has done- in scripture, and even in your life personally. Shift your focus from doing and working, to concentrating on being and resting- in Him.
Now, some of us go the other way. We love Him with all our heart and soul, we have gushy, lovey feelings for the LORD, and we rest in Him, and are so thankful for all He’s done- yet we neglect actively pursuing Him with our minds through reading His word, or we neglect loving Him in our strength through actions and doing the right things. We emphasize His loving grace over His calling us to action. If that’s you, I would encourage you to attempt expressing your heart love for Him through obedience, through actively digging into His word, and through actively engaging in acts of ministry.
Now if we can somehow focus on equally loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength- the natural overflow from that commandment will be loving our neighbor. It’s almost as if loving our neighbor is the litmus test to prove if we are really doing the first commandment of loving God. Now, I have to throw out there that perhaps it’s easier to love a perfect, all holy, good God, and it’s much more difficult to love our messed up, sinful, crazy neighbor. I mean, people are tough, right? People can be really irritating, and especially when there are other stress factors involved, it’s so tempting to just lose it on someone. Given the right circumstances, it’s so easy to lose it on someone even when you don’t know them- even when you don’t know if/how they are messed up, sinful, or crazy. In the right circumstances of stressful situations, love for our neighbor goes right out the window as the first commandment to toss out, rather than it being considered as Jesus says here in verse 40, as one of the two most important commandments which the whole biblical law and books of prophecy are built upon. If you don’t believe me concerning mankind’s’ tendency towards tossing this command aside, go to the outdoor garden section at Lowe’s on a Saturday and if within 15 minutes you don’t see some less than loving interactions, ask one of the employees about the atmosphere of love there. I’m telling you, this COVID thing is testing a lot of people’s patience and loving a neighbor as ourselves seems to be becoming less and less of a priority!
Now if you’re struggling with loving your neighbor- and by “neighbor,” I don’t mean just your physical next- door neighbor- Jesus seemed to broaden the meaning of the term to basically everyone you come in contact with. So, when I say neighbor, I mean any fellow human person that you come in contact with. If you’re struggling with loving fellow humans around you (your neighbor), then I would encourage you to first make sure you are loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Chances are, something is out of whack with that 1st commandment if you are struggling with the 2nd. Remember, this 2nd commandment is more of an overflow of fulfilling the 1st.
But, perhaps there is someone out there who has focused more on the 2nd command of loving their neighbor, more so than they have focused on fulfilling the 1st commandment of loving God. I would suggest that you can’t fully succeed in loving your neighbor, unless first you are loving God. I’m not saying forget your neighbor while you work on loving God, but what I am saying is that attempting to love those around you will be a much more difficult task if you are not first attempting to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. If we can do that first, loving our neighbor won’t be as big of a chore. We’ll be able to see our messed up, sinful, crazy neighbors as individuals for whom Christ died for. We’ll be able to see how much He loves them, even if they are acting crazy. Hopefully we’ll be struck with the mind-blowing patience God has shown us, and we’ll attempt to demonstrate to our neighbors even a fraction of that godly patience.
I’m praying for you church; may you love God and love people well this week!