Love God, Love People

In Matthew 22 a group of Pharisees came and asked Jesus a seemingly simple question, "Which commandment is the greatest commandment?" However, the question was designed to trap Jesus, for whatever commandment he chose as the greatest he would certainly be leaving something out that was equally as important. His response was brilliant: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind...and a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." This is a amazing statement, because not only did he clearly and succinctly answer their faux question, but he also made a fantastic statement about the law and the Old Testament. He said that every law could be summed up in on
e of two categories, either loving God or loving people. It makes perfect sense too if you think about it. Every sin you commit is either, and often both simultaneously, not loving God or not loving someone else. If you love God and your neighbor you wouldn't lie, steal, cheat, adulterate, idolize, and the list goes on.

In fact our whole purpose for being here on earth is to love God and love the people he created. That sums it up. It's simple yet extremely difficult at the same time. So difficult that when this same interaction between the Pharisees and Jesus was recounted by the Apostle Luke in his gospel, one of the Pharisees tried to find a loophole. He asked, "And who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10:29) I guess he realized just how crazy it was to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus responded by telling the often told story of the Good Samaritan who helped a Jewish man who was beaten and left for dead on the side of the road. Not only did the Samaritan help the man, but the man was also passed by two devout Jewish religious leaders and was not helped by them. Now you have to understand that the Samaritans were half-breed Jews and they had different religious practices than the regular Jews, so they literally hated each other. So for Jesus to make the good guy, who was helping his neighbor, a Samaritan was telling the Pharisee who asked the question that he was supposed to love everyone, even and more especially the people he didn't like. I'm sure the Pharisee went away unhappy with Jesus' answer, because it wasn't what he wanted to hear. What about you? How are you at putting into practice the greatest commandments, love God and love others? Are you loving everyone like you would want to be loved? Are you loving God by the way you live your life?

Selfishness To Servant

What would you do if the person that you most admired in the entire world walked into your house for dinner one night? For you it might be a musician like Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift, or a movie star like Brad Pitt, or a TV star like Honey Boo-Boo, but whoever it is I think you would treat them differently. I know if the lead singer from my favorite band, Mumford and Sons, walked in the door I would treat him differently.

Why is that? Because we view them as better than ourselves. We look to these people and see them as more important so we treat them differently, and if you really thought about it they're just another human being and not really intrinsically better than us, but we treat them better and look at them differently because we respect them. This is the idea that God is communicating to us in Philippians 2:3-8 when he says, "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."  

We are all selfish by nature, extremely selfish. Service doesn't come naturally to us, laziness does. Self-sacrifice doesn't come naturally to us, self-promotion does. Humility doesn't come naturally to us, pride does. We're all selfish, albeit some more than others, but truly the one thing people count on is that everyone will look out for themselves first and foremost. No wonder why we exalt and champion those individuals who show extreme selflessness in dire circumstances, because it isn't the default mode for us. The default mode is to save ourselves at all costs. The gospel disarms this notion, pointing out in every one of our hearts the fear and insecurity that drives our selfishness. We have to fight for ourselves because no one else will. If I don't look out for me, than who will? But the truth is that we don't have to be selfish anymore because of what we have in Jesus. The gospel allows us to look out for one another, and not ourselves. When you truly understand that you are completely taken care of in every way in your relationship with Jesus it frees you completely to truly love and take care of others. God tells us to put others first, and not only that, but to actually think of them as better than ourselves - why? - because that's what Jesus did. Jesus was God himself and he humbled himself and came to earth as a human. He came to earth to wash feet, heal sick people, hang out with sinners and prostitutes, and to die in the most humiliating way possible, all of this, for us. This is the mind we as Christians have in Jesus, the freedom to love because we have been loved perfectly by him, the freedom to give because we have been given everything by him, and the freedom to put everyone before ourselves, because of the security and love we already have in Jesus. 

Living selfishly and for yourself is truly exhausting, I want to live in the freedom and security that I possess in Jesus and in so doing truly be able to live not for myself, but for God and for others.