Love God. Love People.
Matthew 22:34-40, The Message - When the Pharisees
heard how he had bested the Sadducees, they gathered their forces for an
assault. One of their religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they
hoped would show him up: “Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most
important?”
Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your
passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on
any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as
you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and
the Prophets hangs from them.”
Anyone who knows me knows that this
passage is my “big deal” passage. It is
Jesus’s restatement of the sum total of all the Old Testament laws. It simplifies the Ten Commandments into two
(all ten have to do with either our relationship with God or our relationship
with people). At the same time Jesus is
summarizing all the laws that have come before, He is also pushing them to a
higher level. As the Apostle Paul will explain
later to the Corinthians, you can follow all the instructions of God’s law to
the letter, but if you do it without love, it lacks power.
I love how Eugene Peterson
translates what we are used to hearing as “heart, soul, and mind” as “passion,
prayer, and intelligence.” It just seems
to imply a greater intensity and action;
I believe this was Jesus’s intention.
The Ten Commandments include a lot of “do not’s.” Do not have
idols. Do not misuse God’s name. Do not kill. Do not lie. Do not commit adultery. Do not envy.
You get the point. Jesus’s
restatement is suggests that it’s not enough to avoid doing unloving things; the point is to transform the actions of our
lives to actively loving God and people.
What we see is that while Jesus has simplified the “ten” into “two,” the
two are actually harder to live out. Jesus
has raised the bar.
What does loving with all of our
passion, prayer, and intelligence look like?
It’s looks as unique as our passions, prayers, and intelligence are. My passion moves in a different direction
than yours and your prayer doesn’t sound like mind. Our intelligence is focused in different
directions. This is a beautiful
thing. By God’s design, the collective
passion, prayer, and intelligence of the entire human race is channeled toward loving. At least that is the divine invitation issued
by Jesus in this exchange with the leading religious leaders of His day. His answer silenced them; they ask Jesus no
more questions in Matthew’s gospel after this (as we’ll see in the next devotional,
Jesus had one more question for them though).
But in this invitation is the power that will change the world forever. It
is still changing the world. Love God and love people. So simple, but also so difficult. It’s still the invitation today for you and
me.
Question: What does
loving God and people with all your passion, prayer and intelligence look like?
Prayer: Lord of all people, you showed us what loving with
passion prayer, and intelligence looked like in Jesus. Shape our hearts, souls, and minds to be more
and more like Christ. Show us the
specific opportunities we have today to love like Jesus. Amen.
Prayer Focus: Pray
for people today that you have a hard time praying for.
Song: Love God, Love
People – Danny Gokey (ft. Michael W. Smith)
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