Mark 12: 29, 30, and 31 The Most Important Commandment

After Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the leading Jewish Priests and other leaders questioned Him and His authority.  He answered their questions well.  He could not be trapped.  In Mark 12:29 one of the leaders of Religious Law asked Jesus, “Of all of the Commandments, which is the most important?”  Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord.  And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength’.  The second is equally important:  ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’.  No other commandment is greater than these.

I have been thinking, reading, and writing about God’s love in my life.  He tells me how much He loves me.  In Mark 12:29, 30, and 31, He tells me how I am to respond to His love.  As a believer, I am to love Him with my whole heart.   Experiencing His love and loving Him back is only part what He tells us to do.  We must love others.  Love is a gift of the Spirit.  The love spoken about is a supernatural love.  God’s love in us makes it possible to love the unlovely and the unlovable.  He fills us with his Spirit and His love.  We are able to love in a deeper dimension.  Only with God’s love within us can we love our enemies and forgive those who have hurt us.  In 1 John 20 He says that if we say we love God but hate people in our lives we are lying because if we don’t love others who we can see, how can we love God, whom we have not seen. 

God does know my heart.  The greatest of God’s gifts is love and He has said that the most important commandment is that we should love God completely and love our neighbor as ourselves.  1 John 4:17 tells me that as I live in God and grow in my faith, I will be able to love more perfectly.