Any Changes?

 

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK

ANY CHANGES?

Mark 12:28-34

28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" 29 "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.   30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'   31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."  32 "Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." 34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

NIV

We know this to be the truth, yet have we really grasped the fullness of this truth? Why is it that we still want to pay so close attention to the commands of God, especially the Ten Commandments when Jesus has said that within these two commands all the law and the prophets hang on these two, which Mark does not tells us, but Matthew records that Jesus said that as well? Jesus said that he did not come to cancel the law, but to fulfill the law, which means that if we are in Christ then we have, in essence, fulfilled all the law and the prophets and we are left with these two that Jesus says are the first and second most important of all the commands. That would have to mean these two are more important than the Ten Commandments as well as any of the Old Testament commands given to Israel. The question that remains is what does loving the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength look like. It seems easy enough to understand loving our neighbor as ourselves, but then we fail so miserably at that all too often, because there are just some neighbors we simply do not like or people that just rub us the wrong way, or are rude, crude, and socially unacceptable. But, let’s go back to loving God with our whole being. How does that work exactly? Have we replaced loving him with the idea of doing good deeds as our form of loving God, or our neighbor for that matter? It is interesting that in Greek the word heart is sometimes seen as thoughts, but in this context, because Jesus included the mind, which that Greek word means deep thoughts, that which we study and contemplate, the word for heart is also interpreted as feelings, as in the feelings of the heart, or our emotions. Sometimes youth confuses love as an emotion when in reality we should decide to love, as this command implies. We decide to love the Lord our God, we decide to ponder on His deep truths, to study his word, looking into it for its truth in our lives. We decide to love Him with our spirit, which is who we actually are, as it is also called our soul, or our immortal soul, or our core being. Then we are also to love him with all the force of our being, our strength, every ounce of force we have, all our power, or ability. Would this not mean when we take all four of those areas of our life, that there is nothing else left that is as important that God in our lives? How then do we still spend so much time in the pursuit of our own desires? It’s not that we don’t do things at church or are involved in some portion of ministry, for we are, and we love doing whatever it is the Lord has gifted us with, or what member of His body we are, what function He has assigned to us. But what is the central focus of our lives? Do we just do this sort of part-time, as it were, while we spend far more of our time or days doing that which we have planned out, as far as our careers, or plans for life, such as working toward that retirement plan or whatever? Certainly, the Lord has placed us on this earth and it does require effort to sustain ourselves as he told Adam that he was to work by the sweat of his brow all the days of his life for his sustenance. So we do have to work for our sustenance, yet all while doing that we are to love the Lord our God with all we are, every fiber of our being, so that all we do is for his kingdom, as we seek him and his kingdom first and foremost above all else. Maybe we need to leave this loving our neighbor till later, for that is entirely a horse of a different color. So, let us just consider if we could improve on loving the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and ability and if that would make any changes in how we live our daily lives. Do we need any changes?