Matthew 22:37-40
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
Sounds easy enough right? Love God Love Others. What does this verse mean to you? What does the phrase Love God and Love Others mean to you?
more to come later...
Hm.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the question should be more along the lines of "How are we called to do this?" or "What does this look like in the Bible?" Point being, if each individual person were to act out God's word according to how it means to them, we'd get some pretty funky versions of what people think God says. Same with taking one of God's commands and asking people what it means to them. It opens the door for open interpretation, sometimes overlooking what the author (God) intended.
Not bashing, I swear. Just giving input.
Most of the time, we do epic fail at loving God and loving others the way we should. Why? We're sinful and selfish. But that doesn't stop God from loving us. 1 John 4:10-12 explains this as it says, "In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us."
SO. We love God. Why? Because he loved us. But this love, this passion he has for us is so revolutionary, so astounding, and actually pretty crazy. He loved us so darned much he sent his Son to die for us. Think about you in ten years: maybe married, perhaps with kids. Could you bear to watch your child be brutally murdered? And yet, God did this just so we may have life in Him.
So, in turn, because of this insane gift and insane love he shows us, we show him love back. We give him our lives, or souls, our hearts, and every fiber of us that we may be drawn to him, to know him. In a sense, we become numb to how crazy this love that the Creator of the universe has for us. But when our eyes are opened to who he is, maybe it becomes a little less hard.
The second commandment is to love others. It’s not easy. Especially when we’re called to love all people. Not just the ones that love us back. Anyone can love someone who loves them back. But God loved us. Even when we turn our back on him, and disobey him and reject him. He loved the unlovable, and if we are to follow Christ, so must we. In a dog-eat-dog world where only self matters, this is pointless, pure folly. But through us doing this, people see God. By loving others, God becomes apparent in us. The thing that separates Christianity from, say, Islam, or any other religion, is that everything, EVERYthing is based on God and his character. Morals, ethics, how to live and act. Islam has a plethora of “teachings” to follow, from a man. Secular Humanism has self to follow. We have God’s character to follow.
Courtney
"the greatest of these is Love" nothing is stronger, better or more pure than true love, and true love is loving with all your heart, soul and mind. it means giving up who you are completely and trusting the one you love. Doesn't God deserve that? I think he does. and who better to love this way than God? he will never break your heart, never leave you nor forsake you. he will never cheat on you or hurt you.
ReplyDeletethe hard part comes in loving your neighbor.. its hard to love someone else as you do yourself, but if you do so to honor God then you have nothing to lose.
love god and others, thats what it means. if you have love for god, you have love for his creations. forgive people. embrace your enemies so that they can feel the love of god as well.
ReplyDeletep.s. i came across this blog via mystery google. pretty cool!
@ patience: so did i lol
ReplyDeleteSure. God is great :)
ReplyDeleteI'm more of a Goddess kind of person though.
explain that, snicheallaigh
ReplyDeletewhat do you mean a goddess kind of person?
if you have love for others and for yourself: you will also be loving god. if you have respect for others as well as yourself, you will also be loving god.
ReplyDeletei'm not sure what it means to me, i think it means love everyone i guess>
ReplyDeleteI am also a Goddess kind of person. Loving others and your chosen deity is all well and good. My deity just may not be the same one you believe in. I believe in the Goddess and the God, which is different than the God of most Christians. There you go.
ReplyDeleteI've always been taught that God is love. And I was never sure how to love love, so that has never played a large role in my life. But the second commandment makes perfect sense to me. It's tolerance... or perhaps a step above. It's seeing the value in people no matter their race, religion, or sexual orientation. Unfortunately, it seems to me that the loudest Christians do very little of that. And historically they did very little of that. I think they are/ were a little too worried about that first commandment. About loving their OWN God. But if that's what God/ love/ whoever wanted, why is the second commandment about loving others and why does it say nothing about loving only your straight, Christian neighbors? To me the first two commandments are about loving all people, and in doing so you will be loving God, loving love. Maybe... the first commandment is the what and the second is the how.
ReplyDeleteNice mystery google advertising by the way
ReplyDeleteTo EricSmith:
ReplyDeleteYou're right. Alot of times Christians can do very little of loving others, especially those who have different beliefs, gods, sexual orientations, etc.
And you're right that Christians are not called to just love "your straight, Christian neighbors." Christians are called to love everyone, even those who do things that Christians wouldn't agree with.
However, being tolerant is a different issue in my opinion. Tolerance and respect are two different things.
oh the bible, interesting book. did u kno that the reason we have rainbows is to remind god not to flood the earth? if i was god, that would be pretty high up on my list of things NOT to do, right beneath don't end all life in the universe by pressing the big red button. i hope god doesn't need a reminder for that one
ReplyDeleteI, personally, am somewhere between an agnostic and a transendentalist. i like this post, because it doesnt do what too many posts do. it simply is preaching love, rather than focusing on hating members of other religions. i have two problems with this though. 1: love god. it forces religion on those who dont necesarily want religion to be forced upon them. I go to church and read the bible not because i believe in it, i do it to hear what it has to say, to hear the stories, the morales, to understand the religion. when i leave a church, temple, or mosque being filled with "love the one true god" i leave feeling dissappointed. if thats really all the one true god wants, is to be loved and recognized, then hes probably a narcisistic (dont think i spelled that right) jerk, and i dont want him to be my god. just my 2 cents. #2 mystery google to spread ur blog? really? i know its a modern age, but come on! poor form sir, poor form
ReplyDeletei think the biblr is too sugar coated these days. we're taught the love parts, and the nice parts. they leave the parts about murder, incest, destruction of the world, genital mutilation followed by massacre, trickery blood feuds, punishment, and animal sacrifice. thats all just from genesis. israel, formerly jacob, is a thief, tricker, slave owner, and sacrifices animals. and they named a country after him. not my religion, not at all. atheism is the way to go.
ReplyDeletei think god is love. i think thats what jesus tried to tell everyone (if only they would listen, maybe they wouldn't be condemned)
ReplyDeleteI think it means exactly what its says
ReplyDeleteI don't pay much attention to anything that the bible says. "My religion is kindness."
ReplyDeleteIm not sure what to make of this. Ive never been to church or anything so its difficult of me to understand what to take of it
ReplyDeletei don'treally know what to think. im not sure what i beleive in but i guess it means to lvoe everyone
ReplyDeleteI think everyone should love everyone regardless of race, gender, sexuality, social status, physical appearance. God made us all equal is His eyes.
ReplyDeleteGOD ISNT REAL
ReplyDeleteWhy can't people just be nice to one another because it's the right thing to do and not because a god or a book told them to?
ReplyDeleteso why do you say that God isn't real?
ReplyDeleteWell, for starters, I KNOW that the flying spaggetti monster created us, but he prefers to remain anonymous. We have conversations about it every afternoon, actually. He says that religion gets in the way of eating carbs. My girlfriend swears that He is actually a hotdog, but only appears to me like this because it is all my small mind can comprehend. She says they count as the same because they are both delicious, as well as carby and amazing. She then swears that either way, he has a weinie gilfriend. I say thats sexist because how do we know if he is a guy? They might be lesbian carbs. She just looks at me strange.
ReplyDeleteI love this scripture.
ReplyDeletePs. Found this blog via mystery google.... Can't wait to see more. :)
I'm not into scripture, but I admire your faith.
ReplyDeleteMISSION COMPLETE.
I'm not sure. I guess the main thing is "be nice" (:
ReplyDeletePs: Mysterygoogle rules! =)
it just means be nice to your friends and ppl but there is no god just the force of life the force we can not describe but only experiance but we make stuff up like god to have an understanding
ReplyDelete(found this on mystery google.....mission complete)
Be the best you can be,
ReplyDeletefor as long as you can be,
to as many people as you meet.
Mission: complete.
I typed machine guns in mystery google and this is what came up. I'm sorry, but I'm not a religious person, and never will be. I do like the goddess better than a god, because I'm a woman, and would god know about girl problems? No, a goddess would understand because she's been there herself.
ReplyDeleteuhh..... i dont understand..........?
ReplyDeletewhat don't you understand about it?
ReplyDeleteLove is explained in 1 Corinthians 13. It seems so easy...love God, love others. That's it. If you do those things, they pretty much cover everything else in the bible. But they're not. They're not easy at all.
ReplyDeleteWhy aren't they easy?
ReplyDeleteI think the bible should have cut to the chase, and had one page that just said "be nice or you'll be sorry! love God. xx" written on it.
ReplyDeleteIt would have saved a lot of time and space. think of all the poor trees dying everyday to make all the bibles in the world :[
love from an athiest xox
That passage does cut right to it though, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. That's pretty straightforward, Love God and Love others
ReplyDeleteaw cute it's inspiring. I got ur mission on "mystery google" nice, but I don't know how to post missions sorri
ReplyDeletevery interesting verse, I myself am a firm believer that love is the foundation for believing in God and following his will, and actually have written close to probably 20 (just a guess) posts on that very fact. Did you ever write anymore about this, i can't seem to find it
ReplyDelete