When asked which was the greatest commandment among all the commandments in the Hebrew scriptures, Jesus responded by quoting the Shema—Deuteronomy 6:5—and adding an easily overlooked commandment found in Leviticus 19:18. “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37, 39).
With laser-like precision, Jesus’s response zeroed in on the essence of the Law. The essence of the Law—how to live a life that is pleasing to God—is boiled down to a single concept: love. Love God, love neighbor, love self.
In linking these two texts from the Hebrew scriptures, Jesus linked love of God with love of neighbor, love of neighbor with love of self. These three expressions of love are interrelated and interdependent. Loving God with all of one’s being is foundational. It is what gives birth to the other two.
To love God with all of one’s being is to be captivated by a love for who God is—God’s character of steadfast, faithful love (Exodus 34:6-7), God’s nature of self-giving, servant love (1 John 4:8-10). It is to be possessed by an all-consuming love for the ways of God that flow out of God’s character—the ways of God that Jesus taught (the ways of the Kingdom)—the ways of grace and forgiveness. Such love is greater than the love of our own egocentric selves. It breaks the power of Self-life (the me-centered, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit that Paul identified as the Sin that enslaves us) in our lives.
The Spirit is at work to transform our hearts, creating such a love within us—breaking the grip of Self-life (Sin) in our hearts; infusing this all-consuming love of God; displacing our me-centered, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit with the servant spirit of Jesus. In other words, this captivating love of God is not something we conjure up through self-effort. It is God’s gift to us through the work of the Spirit. Our part is to desire such a love—or, as my professor would say, want to want such a love—and to do those things that nurture it—prayer, study, worship, living in the interdependence of authentic spiritual community, using our gifts on behalf of others, practicing generosity (just to name a few).
This love of God is expressed in loving our neighbor (Matthew 25:31-46). It is expressed in relating to our neighbor the way God relates to us—out of grace and forgiveness. Such a love trains us to view and value, accept and embrace every person—without exception—as a beloved child of God, one created in the image of God. It trains us to respond to our neighbor’s failures and struggles—normal parts of our human condition—with understanding and compassion and patience rather than judgment and condemnation and rejection (Colossians 3:12-17). When our neighbor “wrongs” us, this love of God leads us to forgive them as God forgives us (Matthew 18:21-35; Romans 12:14-21). This love of God leads us to use our gifts and resources on behalf of our neighbor’s good, seeking their growth, maturity, wholeness, and wellbeing. It trains us to be generous in sharing what we have been given by God (Romans 12:3-8, 1 Peter 4:8-11). It cultivates in us a particular sensitivity to, compassion for, and response to those who are the most powerless and vulnerable—the widow, the orphan, the resident alien or immigrant (Isaiah 1:17), “the least of these” in Jesus’s parable in Matthew 25:31-46, the poor (Luke 16:14-15, 19-31).
The Spirit is the one who empowers us to love our neighbor in this way. The Spirit teaches us the ways of God that Jesus taught, guides us in how to live those ways in specific situations, and empowers us to do so. We do not live this way—loving God by loving our neighbor—in our own strength.
We love God by loving our neighbor. We love our
neighbor by loving ourselves. This next dimension is the focus of my next blog.
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