We come so close to thinking we have life figured out.  It is in these “figured out” times that we realize that the more we know, the more we don’t know, and need to know.  We want God on our terms packaged in a way that is readily and easily within reach when we need Him.  We want to put Him in a box, tied up with a beautiful ribbon and a bow on top.  When we do this, we put limits on the God, the One and Only God who knows all, created all, is in all, and above all.  And above it all—He loves us with a relentless love we cannot completely understand or fully describe.

In our passage today, Jesus reminds those within hearing what God wants from us. Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy 6, a passage that the religious leaders have memorized but not taken to heart.  So, Jesus teaches the religious scholar, one who’s job is to study and interpret God’s Word, the answer to our deepest need—a loving, intimate relationship with the One who loved us from the beginning of creation–even before we were born!  Jesus reintroduces the love of God and our love back to Him as the foundation of our relationship with God and then with others.

Humans without God tend to love with conditions.  I love you—when you do this for me.  I love you—when you give to me.  I love you—when you are good to me.  It’s all about me, isn’t it?  But Jesus presents a love that is beyond normal thinking and takes us to higher Kingdom thinking.  Jesus tells of a love that is found in God’s Kingdom, a committed love for God that drives our thinking and behaving.  Jesus declares this standard of love to be the most important commandment from God to us. 

First love God.  Then love others. 

Mark 12, The Message

The Most Important Commandment

²⁸ One of the religion scholars came up. Hearing the lively exchanges of question and answer and seeing how sharp Jesus was in his answers, he put in his question: “Which is most important of all the commandments?”

^29-31 Jesus said, “The first in importance is, ‘Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.’ And here is the second: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment that ranks with these.”

^32-33 The religion scholar said, “A wonderful answer, Teacher! So clear-cut and accurate—that God is one and there is no other. And loving him with all passion and intelligence and energy, and loving others as well as you love yourself. Why, that’s better than all offerings and sacrifices put together!”

³⁴ When Jesus realized how insightful he was, he said, “You’re almost there, right on the border of God’s kingdom.”

After that, no one else dared ask a question.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

FIRST love God with everything we’ve got within our being.  This love returns all of who we are to all of Who He is.  God is love.  This love is the foundation to intimacy with God that grows with each new day along with God’s new mercies for us to enjoy.  This love builds our character, changing our demeanor which drives our behaviors to be more like Jesus, His Son, while exponentially expanding hearts that are fully committed to Him.  This is the love of God.  To know God is to know real love.  (See 1 John 4)

“You’re almost there, right on the border of God’s kingdom.”—Jesus

THEN love others in the same way we know God loves us.  Randy and I, as ministry leaders, have participated in numerous weddings where Paul’s description of God’s love is read from 1 Corinthians 13.  This wasn’t really a “wedding prayer” but was originally written to the people of Corinth who didn’t have clue about what the love of God was much less how this love was acted upon in real life.  So, Paul explained love to them, using love more as a verb as opposed to merely a feeling.  In our second commandment from God to love others, it is helpful to review Paul’s God-led letter of love to our world who is seeking to know God:

Love Is the Greatest

“If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.”

1 Corinthians 13, NLT

Hebrews 13:8 tells us that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Because He’s the same, we know His love for us doesn’t change either.  Can I get an amen?!

Love God.  Love Others—Two of the greatest commandments that lead to the most important relationship we will ever have in our lives.

Lord,

I do not have it all figured out, but what I do know is that YOU are love.  You put your love in our hearts when we said yes to your salvation.  Your love fills our deepest need.  Your love in us changes us to love others greater because of your great love in us.  Your love is truly amazing.  Your love never changes!  May your love be seen in me.  May your love shine in the darkness, pointing the way back to you.  I love you, Lord, with all my heart, mind and soul. 

In Jesus Name, Amen

And we’re singing…

Your love never fails
It never gives up
It never runs out on me
Your love never fails
It never gives up
It never runs out on me
Your love never fails
It never gives up
It never runs out on me…

(“One Thing Remains,” by Brian Mark Johnson, Jeremy Riddle, Christa Joy Black)