The Greatest Commandment

September 10, 2011 barnontherock

³⁶"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" ³⁷And 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. ³⁸This is the great and first commandment. ³⁹And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. ⁴⁰ On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."

Every so often I come across a passage in scripture that I just want to set up camp and stay there for a while until I can really understand and cherish it. This passage is one like that. It seems short and to the point but in reality its incomprehensible or misunderstood by many. My hope is that in this post I can point out a few things that may cause you to take a second look at it.

First of all, there are over 600 commandments given in the Torah. Jesus claimed that he did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. So, what Jesus is saying in these verses is that the Law is completely fulfilled when we love God and love our neighbors just as we love ourselves. This makes sense to me because many of the laws are in place so that we will know how to act lovingly toward others. We need reminders like "Don't Steal" or "Don't kill" in order not to hurt others. Obviously these are not very loving things to do. If one were to love our neighbors and love God then we would have no need for any of these other commandments. So this begs the question, if we are capable of loving others all the time, by our own will, then why is there a need for any other law to be given? Why can't we consistently love others and make this world into the perfect place we all hope for it to be? How is it possible to love somebody who is not lovely?

The truth is, we are not capable of loving everybody all the time. In fact, I am going to make the argument that we are incapable of loving our neighbor any of the time, nor are we capable by our own will to love God any of the time unless something miraculous happens inside of us. When I say miraculous, I mean that something happens to us that changes the way we inherently behave. Its something that defies explanation from a physical viewpoint. In order to understand it, a truly spiritual change must occur. Its kind of like wind. You cannot see where it comes from or where it goes but you know its there because of the effects that it has on its environment.

Being completely incapable of love to God and our neighbor is a bold claim to make but let's look at what motivates us to do anything. When we give to a charity, why do we do it? To make ourselves feel better about ourselves? Or to ease the guilt that comes from seeing others suffer who do not have enough food to eat? Is this really compassion or is it actually a cold transaction to appease our souls from the guiltiness that weighs on our hearts? Apparently the appeasement of guilt costs little in our society today because this world is highly uncharitable and the official stats confirm it. Will we give until it hurts? Or will we give until it no longer hurts? Charity motivated by guilt is not love. Its self-centeredness.

But perhaps its not guilt, perhaps there is a fear that someday we will be judged by some Supernatural Being for not giving to the needy. In order to be certain that we are a "good" person and can get to Heaven, we must make sure that we have done enough to avoid the wrath of God. But what if works are not enough? What if doing a little better than anyone else is still a failing grade? God grades on the curve doesn't he? Charity motivated by fear is not love. Its self-centeredness. Its also futile.

I suppose many other motivations can be mentioned that would lead to charitable giving but ask yourself this: isn't it all based on a desire to quench some sort of pain inside of us? Is that not self-centeredness?

Is it even possible to be charitable in the purest form? What would that look like? I believe it means that we must be willing to suffer for something with no expectation whatsoever for any earthly reward. Pure charity would be strictly out of a desire to please God. Yes this too would appear to be motivated by self-centeredness. We please God in exchange for something, right? Wrong! We please God out of appreciation for what He has already done for us knowing that our praise will never be able to pay back what He has given us. We are not being charitable because we need anything more from God. He has already given us everything we need if we trust in Him.

Does anybody desire to please God? Why should we desire to please God? First of all, the only way to desire to please God is to first have faith in Him. Why would we want to please something that we aren't sure even exists? The second step to having a desire to please God is to appreciate all that He has done for you. It may not seem obvious but the fact that you are not undergoing extreme pain right now is a gift of grace from God. The fact that crops continue to grow and you can buy food at the store is a gift of grace from God. When we begin to see the blessed world we live in, a world that is blessed in spite of being a fallen world, we realize how great the grace of God is. This should naturally compel us to love this God wholeheartedly. But it goes even further, if you believe that the Bible is the true, inspired Word of God, then so many more Spiritual blessings can be had. The understanding of forgiveness is a gift of grace. The understanding of what it takes to make a marriage truly thrive is a gift of grace. The understanding of what Christ accomplished on the cross is a gift of grace.

But....faith in God cannot be obtained on your own. Appreciation for God's gifts of grace cannot be obtained on your own. Love for God cannot be obtained on your own. Therefore, pure, selfless love for your neighbor cannot be obtained on your own. As a result, nothing you do can be charitable in its purest form. It will always be an act of self-centeredness and a failure to abide by the greatest commandment. Without this kind of love, the world will never even come close to seeing peace no matter how hard we try. But for some of us, we experience this pure love and peace today within a community of believers who truly love God for what He has done for us.

It is my prayer that God will draw you to understand who He is and open your eyes to see how to love God and desire to please Him, out of appreciation for the mercy he has shown to us.

¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.