We all should know, they are:
"Love the Lord with all your heart, mind and strength" and "Love your neighbor as yourself."
In fact, it seems that no other admonition is repeated more in the New Testament than to love and be loving to one another.
If this is true, why aren't we known for this? Why do our kids and many adults think it's "don't lie"?
It seems like Christians are more known for not smoking, drinking or cussing, and trying to make non-Christians stop sinning, than for loving their neighbors.
No wonder our churches are shrinking, many of us are just like the Pharisees Jesus condemned.
If we want to win more people to Christ, we're going to have to live radical lives of love, servanthood and sacrifice - like Jesus commanded and modeled for us to live.
My husband and some friends have partnered with some other friends who have planted a church. Yesterday was our second service. The first two messages were on who we are as a church. The vision of the church is to Love God. Love People. Make Disciples. We want to radically love the people of our communities and our cities. Matthew 22:36 was the verses our pastor taught from these past two weekends.
Comment by PLandis - Apr 06, 2009 @ 09:35 AM
Perhaps the problem with us is that we don’t know how to love the Lord and we hate ourselves. So many Christians RESPECT God, but don’ know how to LOVE Him. Then we think we are such sinners that we hate ourselves. How do you love your neighbor when you hate yourself?
We need to do a lot of learning about God’s love to understand what it means to,
“Love the Lord with all your heart, mind and strength” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Comment by Vaughn Jennings - Apr 08, 2009 @ 08:08 AM
I tend to think it is not so much that we don’t love ourselves as that we don’t think of anyone else. We have made our faith about an individual relationship and concentrated on the individual. If faith was about the community primarily then we would see ourselves in context and it might be easier to follow the greatest commandment.
Comment by Adam S - Apr 13, 2009 @ 06:44 AM