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Our devotions over the last several days have been about loving our neighbors. I fall short from time to time. It’s not always easy, but it seems like Jesus extended love so easily. Could it be that we just make it too hard, could it be that we just expect too much from ourselves and from others?
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (NIV) Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Let’s put some perspective on this verse of Scripture here in Deuteronomy. In this particular part of Scripture, this particular command is in fact an echo of the first commandment: You will have no other gods before me. And not to imply that Yahweh could just simply be the strongest or the head of all the gods. He is not like Zeus in Greek mythology. It’s that He alone is God. The totality of Israel’s commitment to God is motivated by His absolute uniqueness. Yahweh is undivided, whole, complete and He is absolute.
If you read further in the book of Deuteronomy, you will find that God is preparing them to transition out of the desert and into the Promised Land. A few chapters further in this story you hear how important it is to put God first in your heart over many, many things so that, the Israelites will not be led astray by the cultures or societal norms in the nations around them.
In the New Testament Jesus is asked about this.
Mark 12:28-34 (NIV) 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?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 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: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 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.” 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.
So this central belief, this idea that God is uniquely God and that we as humanity are living with the purpose to love God above everything else, with everything that is our being would have been taught to the children of the day. And then – Jesus tacks on this two-part addition: that we are to love others as we love ourselves. Matthew notes Jesus adds emphasis to this by saying that all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. Please don’t forget that loving others as we love ourselves also implies that we know how to care for ourselves physically, spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally – self care is NOT selfishness.
So here is the question that I have and I want to leave with you to think about today. Can you love God and not love others? Can we fulfill one command and not the other? Are these two commands twisted and intertwined with each other? Are they inseparable, if they are then we have to understand that if we don’t love others – if we don’t love the unlovable – how can we say we love God?
Romans 13:8-10 (NIV) Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.