Responding to love

The greatest commandment

34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "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. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:34-40


A commandment is a rule, right? We've heard of the Ten Commandments, the basis of the moral code many of us grew up with. Don't murder or rob anyone; be faithful to your partner, and respect your parents. Even with the changes in society's view of the value of these beliefs, I'm not shockproof. When I read about a child seeking to divorce her parents, or someone's brutal murder being described as an accident, I shudder. What about respect, or self-control, or contentment? Why are these commandments being broken wholesale? The wrongness of evil being embraced as good nauseates me. What do the commandments mean anymore?

A commandment is a rule that must be obeyed. God laid out His expectations in the Ten Commandments. They are the blueprint of what He wants from us and for us. He gave these commandments to Moses, knowing they would be broken over and over again. He knew we would break every law He gave, disobey repeatedly, and flout His teachings. That is why He was specific with the law; God knew we could not comprehend more. The law was the precursor to Jesus.

Jesus came to fulfill the law, and while Jesus obeyed every stricture in it, He knew it as an outline of the greater truth: that we love God wholeheartedly. No reservations, no holding back; we must love hHim as He loves us, pouring out what we have in love, as HHe does for us. And we must do this to others as well, sharing with them the agape love He offers us. Why? Because that is the great commandment, the great law, the great truth. It is the law of love. And where we do not have love, we need God to provide it. When others do not have love, we must partner with God to shower it upon them. Everything else of value comes from that love.