Love

23 Aug

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees,
they gathered together, and one of them,
a scholar of the law, tested him by asking,
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
He said to him,
“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”  (Mt 22:34-40)

Jesus always had a way of boiling things down to their most basic elements.

Out of hundreds of laws that the Israelites were compelled, He talked about love: love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self.

When we examine our lives, we have to admit that things get bad for us when one of those areas is out of kilter.  If we do not love God as we are supposed to do, our lives become out of balance.  If we do not love others, we find that the going gets really tough.  If we do not love self, we become miserable people.

Love of God, neighbor, and self are critical if we are to have any chance of “going on” in our daily lives.

FAITH ACTION:  What can you do today to show your love for God, neighbor, and self?