The Great and Foremost Commandment

Matthew 22:34-23:12

³⁴ But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. ³⁵ One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing 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 foremost commandment. ³⁹ The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”...

23 Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, ² saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; ³ therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them. ⁴ They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. ⁵ But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. ⁶ They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, ⁷ and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men. ⁸ But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. ⁹ Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. ¹⁰ Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. ¹¹ But the greatest among you shall be your servant. ¹² Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.

For any of you who are regular readers of "nuggets", you will know that the first portion of today's text is what I would consider a foundational scripture. It is a principle and truth that is so vital to our Christian faith and walk that I don't believe we can possibly focus too much time and attention to it. If we truly get this into our hearts everything else will follow. Until we get this little else really matters.

 ³⁵ One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing 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 foremost commandment. ³⁹ The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

You shall love the Lord your God with ALL your heart, and with ALL your soul , and with ALL your mind. To love God with all of our heart is to esteem and value our relationship with Him above all other relationships in our lives. Jeremiah 17:9 says “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it? In our natural state our hearts are deceitful and wicked. We are self centered, manipulative and easily manipulated. The heart that loves God though is a changed heart.  1 John 4:19 says  ^"We love, because He first loved us." So our love for God is first a response to His love for us. When we have truly begun to recognize the extent of God's love for us we can not help but to love Him. The love of God is a love that is beyond our human capacity to understand or fully reciprocate. The psalmist says:

Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.(Psalm 37:4) To Delight in the Lord is to love Him with all your heart. As we with our hearts changed by His love, love Him in return we are changed. Our desire is for God, not for what He will do for us but to fellowship and be in His presence. 

To love God with all of our soul is to love Him more than life itself. This life and these bodies we live in are temporary. Our soul is eternal. To love God with all our soul is to put our love for Him beyond all that is temporal. God so loved the world and us that He sent Jesus, His Son to die for our sins, that we might have eternal life. The Passion of Christ on the cross was to purchase our eternal souls. If He paid so high a price for our souls, how can we not love Him with all that He has purchased? In Matthew 16:24-26 Jesus says:

 "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?…  

Christ died for our eternal souls. We in turn are called to deny ourselves, to die to self, to give up all that is temporal, to gain what is eternal. To love God with ALL your soul.

To love God with all your mind. God is a God of order. We see it, His order, in the intricracy of creation. With all of our knowledge and technology man still can not come close to fully understanding let alone duplicating the order and balance of creation. It is for that reason, because order is an important part of the character of God, that we are told to first love God with our heart and soul before we can love Him with our mind. Within our minds we make decisions based on the information we have. So to love God with our mind, if our heart is not first changed by God's love is merely an intellectual decision. Being a decision of our human mind it will be influenced and controled by the information we have. To love God with our mind would then be a love that would include our fears and our doubts. It would be a love that is limited by our own knowledge and understanding. It would be as I said merely an intellectual decision based on information and as such our love would be subject to change according to the information or circumstances affecting our lives. But, when we first love with all of our heart, changed by the love of God and then love with all of our soul, having died to the temporal for the sake of the eternal our minds then are renewed and we can love God. Romans 12:2

² And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. 

1 Corinthians 2:16 says:  For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.    Having the mind of Christ we can then truly love God with all our minds.

Recognizing again that God is a God of order, we see that we need to first have this first commandment before the second, which is to love our neighbor as ourselves. Often we try to put the second commandment before the first, making a priority of loving and serving others. When we put the second commandment ahead of the first we are loving and serving on human terms. It is a love limited by our human capabilities and capacity. Surely the best we can humanly offer pales in comparison to the love of God. If we first, do the first, then we love others with a heart that is changed by the love of God. We love them with an eternal soul that has died to all that is temporal. We then love them with no potential for hurt or offense. We love them unconditionally, as God loves us and them. We also then love them with the mind of Christ, not our own minds. Romans 12:2 says that the renewing of our minds brings about "the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect." Loving God first we can then love in a way that is good and acceptable and even perfect.

Jesus said that upon these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets. That is everything else that was contained in scripture in Jesus day. Until we truly live and walk in the first, greatest commandment,   “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’, nothing else we do really matters. If we will truly LOVE THE LORD OUR GOD WITH ALL OUR HEART, AND WITH ALL OUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL OUR MIND, then we can do the second and love our neighbor and we can begin to walk in all that we are called to do.

Jesus says in John 15:

 ⁵ I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. ⁷ If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. ⁹ Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. ¹⁰ If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. ¹¹ These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. 

In much, apart nothing.

Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit thank You that You first loved me and that through Your love I have been changed, saved for eternity, renewed and transformed. I delight in You. I desire to love You with all my heart, soul and mind. Then in Your perfect love I will love my neighbor and fulfill Your call and commission for my life. Amen