The Greatest Commandment

Matthew 22

The Greatest Commandment

34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
 
Amen. And if I may add:

17"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:17-20)

Then 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." (NIV, Mark 12:28-31).

Sadly many people focus only on keeping the law, rules and regulations at the expense of loving others.

There is no commandment greater than these.. love God and love others.

But to genuinely love God and others, a person need to fall in love with Jesus and place faith and trust in Jesus and be born again. Then God writes His law and love on your heart.

Many people are so busy following the law that they neglect to remember the heart of the law...LOVE.
 
Without love, you have nothing. Many religious people forget this truth.

Yes indeed.

Love is the foundation of everything. Bible says God IS LOVE, which means God and love are one and inseparable, it's part of him.

When I was born again, that was one of the most amazing things that I noticed in my own life and heart, I started to feel a deep and sincere love for others. But before I was born again, I hated most people.
 
Perhaps, from the foregoing posts, we may add the following:

It is written GOD is LOVE

* 1 John 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

Therefore the ultimate of everything about God and His words, it is LOVE.

Thus, in 1 Cor 13, after everything, it was concluded LOVE is the ultimate that God expects from His chosen:

* 1 Corinthians 13:13 And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
 
Without love, you have nothing. Many religious people forget this truth.
If they are merely religious and have not truly been changed by the Spirit of God, then there is no way they can love, for to do so they must have God, who is Love, living within them
 
If they are merely religious and have not truly been changed by the Spirit of God, then there is no way they can love, for to do so they must have God, who is Love, living within them

EXACTLY!

JESUS CHRIST preached SPIRITUALITY, but the Scribes and Pharisees who were limited only to RELIGIOSITY never understood what He was saying.

Therefore,

JESUS CHRIST very sharply rebuked them:

* John 8:19 Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also.

* John 8:54 Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God: 55 Yet ye have not known him...

Hence, how can the SCRIBES AND PHARISEES who cannot truly identify the FATHER love GOD?
 
Matthew 22

The Greatest Commandment

34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

This verse raises an interesting dilemma:
If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26
 
This verse raises an interesting dilemma:
If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26

I have always understood that verse as meaning "love less".

For example, "And he went in also unto Rachel, and he loved also Rachel more than Leah, and served with him yet seven other years. And when the LORD saw that Leah was hated, he opened her womb: but Rachel was barren." - Gen 29:30-31

Here, "hated" is clearly used synonymously with one who is loved less. If Jacob actually and literally hated Leah , why would he consent to take her as his wife at all? (See also Judges 14:16 and Deut. 21:15-17.)

How do others see it?
 
This verse raises an interesting dilemma:
If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26

I can only see what GOD says of His words! (Loving less is but a conjecture, an opinion.)

Yes indeed, if we violate this basic truth about perceiving the "intended message of God" from His words:

* Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

For how can we LOVE GOD if at the same time "hate" the following?

* Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

Shall we still insist on trying to understand the word of God using our "intellect, senses, and feeling" and continue ignoring the following taboos?

* Jeremiah 17:5 Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.

* Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
 
You see more than what God says, you then interpret what God says and come to your own conclusions, and so does everyone else and many times people come to different interpretations.

Is this my own interpretation for JESUS CHRIST to say:

For a requisite to LOVE God:

* Mark 12:29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:

NOW ready to LOVE GOD:

Mark 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

AFTER "loving God" to love our "neighbor"

* Mark 12:31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour (distinquished from fellowmen) as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
CONFIRMATION:

Mark 12:32 And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he:

THE FOREGOING WAS JUST A REPETITION OF OLD TESTAMENT ON LOVE:

For a requisite to LOVE God:

* Deuteronomy 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:

NOW ready to LOVE GOD:

* Deuteronomy 6:5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

What more proof do we want to see regarding the proper sequence for LOVE!
 
Is this my own interpretation for JESUS CHRIST to say:

For a requisite to LOVE God:

* Mark 12:29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:

NOW ready to LOVE GOD:

Mark 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

AFTER "loving God" to love our "neighbor"

* Mark 12:31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour (distinquished from fellowmen) as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
CONFIRMATION:

Mark 12:32 And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he:

THE FOREGOING WAS JUST A REPETITION OF OLD TESTAMENT ON LOVE:

For a requisite to LOVE God:

* Deuteronomy 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:

NOW ready to LOVE GOD:

* Deuteronomy 6:5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

What more proof do we want to see regarding the proper sequence for LOVE!


1000 random Christians can read those verses, and you may get many different interpretations of what the verses actually say. For example, the phrase, " love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind" can mean different things to different people.

This is part of spiritual maturity, to become aware that people see and view and interpret and understand things differently to you.
 
Yes, this is what God condemns. The use of human wisdom where different people have varied perceptions of the word of God.

But, "by divine revelation," there is no room for the "intellect, senses, and feeling" to muddle the "intended message" of God from His words. That is why God wants us to be a "suckling or babe" in order to be endowed with "divine knowledge and wisdom."

* Isaiah 28:9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
* Matthew 11:25 At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.
 
Yes, this is what God condemns. The use of human wisdom where different people have varied perceptions of the word of God.

But, "by divine revelation," there is no room for the "intellect, senses, and feeling" to muddle the "intended message" of God from His words. That is why God wants us to be a "suckling or babe" in order to be endowed with "divine knowledge and wisdom."

* Isaiah 28:9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.
* Matthew 11:25 At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.

I am asking these questions in sincerity:

Are you infallible and do you have perfect understanding and perfect interpretation of entire Scripture?

If no, then please tell me what part of Scripture you have misunderstood and misinterpreted.

You get my point?

Thank you.
 
I am asking these questions in sincerity:

Are you infallible and do you have perfect understanding and perfect interpretation of entire Scripture?

If no, then please tell me what part of Scripture you have misunderstood and misinterpreted.

You get my point?

Thank you.

This is what I read, and I believe it:

* James 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

James 1:6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
 
I
This is what I read, and I believe it:

* James 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

James 1:6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
I see these verse's as showing our need to grow in wisdom in (loving God and other's) because we don't have perfect or absolute wisdom nor do we have always in every thing have mature faith because we our growing but not have arrived.
I do not claim that I have already succeeded or have already become perfect. I keep striving to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has already won me to himself.
Of course, my friends, I really do not think that I have already won it; the one thing I do, however, is to forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what is ahead.
So I run straight toward the goal in order to win the prize, which is God's call through Christ Jesus to the life above.
All of us who are spiritually mature should have this same attitude. But if some of you have a different attitude, God will make this clear to you GNB
 
This is what I read, and I believe it:

* James 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

James 1:6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

Once again, you failed to directly answer my questions. But I understand there may lay an underlining fear for you to answer me, so I won't be asking the questions again and respect the fact that you do not want to answer me. God bless.
 
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