Verse: Matthew 22:37-40
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Devotional Thoughts:
This saying is another one of those that we tend to lose the significance of, simply because we’ve heard it so many times. But it really is a profound saying. First, realize who Jesus is talking too. The Pharisees and Sadducees are in the audience. They had been trying to trip Him up in His words, to little success. And Matthew says that a lawyer asks this question to test him, “Which is the great commandment in the Law?”
Jesus begins his answer by quoting Deuteronomy 6:5,
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Every person who knew the Old Testament would’ve recognized this commandment. And Jesus adds to it by saying they should love their neighbor as themselves. He follows that up by making a massive claim, which was neither expected nor asked for, that on those two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.
The Pharisees would’ve said they loved God with all their heart, soul, and mind. But in the very next chapter, Jesus says that they “tie up heavy burdens and lay them on people’s shoulders.” And that they “shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces.”
They claimed to love God. But they didn’t love those around them.
Points to Ponder:
These two commandments sum up the entire Bible. These two commandments are perfectly demonstrated in the life of Jesus.
Love God and love your neighbor. An inward reality and an outward expression.
Here’s an underlying truth Jesus is getting at in speaking with the Pharisees – if you don’t love your neighbor, then you don’t truly love God.
And this type of love for your neighbor isn’t a shallow, cost-less love. The command is to love them like you love yourself. This is the type of love that requires sacrifice. It’s the type of love that rejoices in their successes and weeps in their pain.
It’s the type of love the Good Samaritan showed the wounded man on the side of the road. It’s the type of love Jesus showed us. Let us go and do likewise.
