Scripture:

Mark 12:28-34 One of the religion scholars came up. Hearing the lively exchanges of question and answer and seeing how sharp Jesus was in his answers, he put in his question: "Which is most important of all the commandments?"
Jesus said, "The first in importance is, 'Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.' And here is the second: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' There is no other commandment that ranks with these."

The religion scholar said, "A wonderful answer, Teacher! So lucid and accurate—that God is one and there is no other. And loving him with all passion and intelligence and energy, and loving others as well as you love yourself. Why, that's better than all offerings and sacrifices put together!"

When Jesus realized how insightful he was, he said, "You're almost there, right on the border of God's kingdom." After that, no one else dared ask a question.

Observation:

Let's cut to the chase...What is the greatest commandment. I want to make sure I do that one. In the Jewish faith, there are many, many commandments. So for this scholar to come and ask which one was the most important says this was a man who was cutting through all the other stuff to focus on what was most important. In life, there are so many things that have importance placed upon them and the church and religion is no different. Is it important to go to church every Sunday? Yes! But is it the most important? No or else Jesus would have answered "Go to church every Sunday" What has happened is that we have empowered church attendance and many other things with being Christian and that's way off base. I heard someone say,(just this morning) that sitting in a church makes me no more a Christian than sitting in my garage makes me a car. So what sets us apart as Christians? 2 things: Love God and Love our Neighbor.

Application:

Although these two things seem to be extremely easy, they are not! They are extremely hard. To love God with all your heart mind and soul means placing God before all else in our lives and that's not easy. We so often want to place even ourselves ahead of God. In order to place God first that means sacrifice and as humans sacrifice does not come naturally. It's something that we have to work at. There's an old saying that it's a lot easier to say than to do and that is certainly true in this case.

Loving others as we love ourselves is equally as hard because this is calling us to love even those we don't like very much. It calls us to love those who are not like us, who dress differently, who look different, talk different, live in a different way than we do. It's those people whom we want to critize and to judge, yet we are not called to critize and to judge...we are called to love them as much as we love ourselves. This is a prime example of Jesus calling his disciples way out of the box. Why are we called to do this? Because it is what Christ has done.

Prayer:

Dear Lord, what you have called us to do is extremely hard and difficult. To love you in a sacrificial way does not come naturally to me and it's something that I have to work at. I have a desire to put myself first always and to do what is best for me according to the ways of the world. However, what is best for me is your will and that is almost always contrary to the ways of the world. Help me to remember that you are desiring for me to become more Christlike and showing me the way to love in a way that leads to perfection. Yet, I can't do that without your grace. Please continue to pour it upon me as I struggle to become more like your Son and my Savior in Jesus Christ. Amen.