Following our theme from last week, as a newly converted Christian you are going to be assembling with other Christians to worship God and study the Bible and attending Bible classes and other meetings a lot over the coming weeks and months and years.
And with all these gatherings and studies, we must know our aim. What is our goal?
Well, Paul wrote to Timothy (1 Timothy 1:5)
5 The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
It’s all about love!
That is the goal. Developing love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.
When Jesus was asked the greatest commandment. What did He say?!
Matthew 22:35-40
35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And 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. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
If you learn how to love God and love your neighbor then everything else will fall into place.
THE FIRST GREAT COMMANDMENT: You must Love God
Don’t get bogged down trying to determine the difference between the heart, soul, and mind. What this means is we must love God with all of our being.
There is no room for us to love anyone or anything above God. Period.
Also, don’t get bogged down thinking loving God is some mushy, emotional, feelings, hand-holding type of thing. It’s not an emotional fit of glee at the mentioning of God’s name.
Loving God is an action.
John 14:15, 21, 23-24
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.
When you love God you will learn His word, you will study it, and obey it. And you need to do it with all your being.
THE SECOND GREAT COMMANDMENT: You must Love your Neighbor
Ephesians 5:28,29
28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church,
Here we learn the concept of loving another person as we do our self.
“as our own bodies”
“nourishes and cherishes it”
Once again this is not a mushy, emotional, feeling love. God describes this kind of love by what it does and what it does not do.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
This is how we are supposed to act towards others.
And you may ask, “Who is my neighbor?”
A lawyer asked Jesus that very same question.
Luke 10:29-37
29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side.32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.35 And the next day he took out two denarii[c] and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
Our neighbor is anybody we have the ability to do good to. And Jesus said we need to do what is best for them. Nourishing and cherishing them as we would do for our own bodies.
Now you may think if you get these two greatest commandments down that everybody will love you in return.
Unfortunately, this is not so. Some will not return your love.
God pointed out that no matter what everybody else does we need to still love our neighbor as our self.
John 15:18-21
18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.
Luke 6:22-23, 26
22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! 23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.
26 “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.
We must trust God and know if we follow these two greatest commandments then every thing else will fall into place.