“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 22:37-40).”’”
In this passage, Jesus makes the mission of Christians pretty clear. We are to love God, and we are to love others, but these commands, although they get straight to the point, don’t always seem practical in day-to-day living. What does it mean to love God with your heart, soul, and mind? Who is your neighbor? Do I have to love others when they hurt me? How can I love someone that I don’t even like? While this passage is short and gets straight to the point, I sometimes find myself wishing it was longer. Sometimes I wish I could open up the Bible and find a passage that will tell me exactly what words I should say or exactly how I should act in my specific scenario. Although the Bible isn’t a step-by-step guide, if we explore further, we can find answers to the questions above.
Starting with the first commandment to love God with everything that you are, I believe that we as individuals must look at our lives and think about how we can best love God. When God says He wants us to love Him with our heart, soul, and mind, He is saying He wants to be at the core of our feelings, our desires, and our thoughts. Luke 14:26 says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters–yes, even their own life–such a person cannot be my disciple.” I don’t believe that this verse is really telling us that we must hate our families and those we love. The verse that follows the command to love God tells us to love our neighbors. What I do believe this verse is saying is that our love for God must be stronger than our love for anything else. The original Greek word for the word hate is miséō. One definition of this word is “to love less.” This means that we must pour everything into loving God. We must position ourselves in a way that allows us to worship God with everything that we are. If social media distracts you from God, it may be time to look at taking time away from Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. If you know that you need to spend time with God in the morning because you fall asleep when you try at night, set your alarm twenty minutes earlier. Do what you need to do to put yourself in a place where you devote the best of your time and worship to God.
When you are loving God completely, you will be able to love others better too. The command that tells us to love our neighbor is telling us to love anyone that we come into contact with in our lives. If they are near us, as a neighbor would be, we must love them. In today’s society, we must also consider that we come into contact with several people that we are not physically near. I believe that even if we are communicating with someone through social media or technology, the command to love our neighbor applies. It can be hard to love everyone we communicate with, but we do not have to like everyone. The type of love that this passage talks about is agape love. Agape love is selfless. It gives even when nothing is returned. When we are hurt, we can still love others in the way that God commands us to do. Jesus was hurt by many, but that didn’t stop Him from serving others.
It is hard to love others well, especially those you don’t like, but we can love them in God’s strength. Agape love requires a relationship with God so that He can show us what true love is. Remember the command to love God comes before the command to love others. With so much hurt and hate and many discouraging words being tossed around our world today, we need to be the light that shines brightly. We need to love others, even when it is hard, so that God can work through us and continue to heal us and our land. Keep loving God, keep loving others, and show others how to love along the way.
