Scripture Reading(s)
Matthew 22:34-40
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.
35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
37 And he said to him, “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 first commandment.
39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Reflections
Love is the root and foundation to everything that Jesus did during His ministry on earth and still does in our lives today. The Christian faith is rooted deeply in one single characteristic: love. This love starts with firstly being devoted to God and constantly pursuing a deeper relationship with Him. Loving God is an act of thankfulness and gratitude that we ought to have for the ultimate sacrifice that He paid when He died on the cross for us. Furthermore it is the appropriate response to His ever loving and on going faithfulness in our daily lives.
Christ loved us enough to give up His perfect and holy life to die a brutal and humiliating death for us on the cross. The love that He had for us in the example that we ought to follow when loving others around us. Not only is what He did an example but for Christians, it is a command on how we should be living our lives. This command is pointed at the type of love we should have to not only all those around us but especially those whom we find it difficult to love.
The beauty of God’s love for us is that we were filled with sin and underserving of Christ’s love. Yet He loves us despite all that we’ve ever done and that same love should be exercised to those whom we come in contact with. I am recently learning a major lesson on what it means to truly love someone who so very easily makes it hard to have a relationship with them. I am constantly challenged with putting up with someone who I feel has a very difficult personality. Yet, when I read this verse I see that as a Christian, I am called to show love regardless of how I may feel about them. The verse does not say “love your neighbor as yourself, only when it’s easy” it is an unconditional love.
God’s love for you and I was and still is unconditional. Let us prayerfully ask God for a heart that will be willing and active to love others no matter what.