Jesus gives us the two greatest commandments. We often shorten them to “love God and love your neighbor.” That is fine for a quick response or quick recall to our minds, but are we failing to remember the full meaning of those commandments by doing so?
Read today’s passage slowly. Concentrate on each word. Break them down into bite sized chunks. When we do so, we find there is quite a lot packed into them. Let’s take a look.
The first commandment is known as the Shema by the Jews. It starts with stating God is one. We, too, confess there is one God. However, we recognize three personhoods within the one God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is why we will call Jesus both the Son of God and God interchangeably. It is also why we say God lives within us through the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Mark records Jesus saying we are to love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Though we may look at these as being separate, they overlap one another. The meaning behind heart is our physical, mental, and spiritual life. Soul can mean our inner life or life principle. Mind refers to our cognitive functions—thinking, comprehending, reasoning. Strength is our vitality or life force that motivates all the previous functions. We can sum them up by saying we are to love God with every fiber of our being.
The second commandment implies that we must first love ourselves, then love others. Though this is true, it does not mean we put ourselves above others. Instead, it means we are to love everyone as God’s creation. We can interpret this to mean the same as loving God. If we love God with our entire being, we will also love his creation, including ourselves and others.
Jesus finishes His answer to the question posed by stating there is no greater commandment than these. In other words, we are to make these two commandments our top priority. If we obey these two commandments, everything else falls in place and we will obey all other commandments naturally. Therefore, if we are struggling with obedience to God, we must first ask ourselves if we love God with our entire being and love others in the same way.
I pray we all choose to love God with our entire being. I pray we choose to love ourselves and others. I pray each one of us understand that by obeying these two commandments we will obey God’s other commandments. Love God. Love yourself. Love others. Be obedient.
Mark 12:29-31 Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Marty Pressey 