Love God and Neighbor?

Matthew 22:34-40
You Shall Love

Jesus informed the Sadducees about the Great Commandment in the Law. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

The first and great commandment is taken from Deuteronomy 6:5. The command calls for total commitment and devotion of the entire person to God and His commandments.

The second is taken from Leviticus 19:18, with a related statement in 19:34. This command calls for each person to seek the well-being of all people whether Jew or Gentile.

The problem that we have with these commandments is in our inability to fulfill them. Since we all are unrighteous and don’t do the good that we ought (see Romans 3) then it is unclear how it is that we “shall” love God and “shall” love our neighbor. It appears that God has called us to do what we are not capable of doing in and of ourselves.

The Law first crushes us under the weight of our sin so that it can lead us to Christ who bore the crushing weight of our sin and the judgment that it deserves.

So, the only way that we “shall” love God and “shall” love our neighbor is by the love of God in Christ by the Spirit. Once we are brought to faith in Jesus Christ by the gift of faith that He alone gives us, then we are continually sanctified by the work of the Holy Spirit within us. We do not sanctify ourselves. We do not make ourselves grow.

It is fascinating to watch small children grow into adults. But it is interesting that the little boy or girl does not make himself or herself grow into an adult. The growth occurs without the child’s conscious effort. While one major contributing factor to growth is nutrition, at the youngest age, the child is totally dependent upon someone else to feed him or her.

But who feeds the young Christian? The Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit draws us to do as the first disciples did as noted in Acts 2:42: "And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers."

Note that they did not devote themselves to legalistic calls to love one another. If we follow their pattern, we will eventually recognize the work of the Holy Spirit to bring about our growth in the faith that Christ authors and finishes. We should become increasingly thankful for such mercies of Christ. As we do, we may also recognize our increasing though imperfect Love for God and for our neighbor.

Reforming our Thinking may cause us to realize that the only way we can love God and our neighbor is by Christ completing His perfect work in us. Then, and only then, shall we love as He intends.