I have a hard time with loving the way that Jesus said to love. My guess is I'm not unique in this. In fact, I'm fairly certain that this is an inherent human experience. We are selfish, we are self-centered. This doesn't mean that we really love ourselves, it just means that we are focused on ourselves. When you're focused on yourself, you have not focus left for God. When you don't have time for God, you don't have time for anyone else.
When Jesus was asked by a skeptic to name the greatest commandment, he gave two answers. "The Greatest Commandment," he said, "is to love God with all that you feel, all that you think, and all that you physically are." This was his first answer, and to the skeptical lawyers and religious leaders who were drilling him, this was probably acceptable. However, he immediately added a second commandment:
"'Love others as well as you love yourself.' These two commandments are pegs; everything in God's Laws and the Prophets hang on them." (The Message)The first and greatest commandment is taken from one of the central religious texts of Israel, specifically from Deuteronomy 6:5. There is no doubt that the Pharisee who asked this questions agreed with the answer to an extent, but possibly not in principle. He may have had a different opinion in fact, such as circumcision or sacrifice. Maybe he agreed but wouldn't admit it for fear of his peers. Maybe he would have thought any answer Jesus gave was wrong. Whatever he thought, he probably wasn't expecting the second commandment.
This is, to me, the Good News of Jesus and the Kingdom Among Us in a nutshell: love God with all that you are and love everyone else, too. And I love it. I love how stripped down and simple it is. I love that this command draws us to God, but also draws us to each other. I love that it also points us to ourselves and reminds us that we are worth loving and that we should love ourselves. If you have ever needed an explanation of who God is, everything you need is contained in this (these) Greatest Commandment(s).
Just as much as I love this command, I shrink from it. Like most everything that I do in my life, I don't understand why I shrink from it, but I do. I think that I shrink because I don't want to screw up. For example, I don't believe that I really do love God with all that I am. There are times when I don't love Him with much of what I am at all. More than that, the times when I don't love people around me seem to outnumber the times when I ignore God. I'm much more inclined to forget my neighbor than God, especially if I'm scared that God will get mad at me for forgetting him.
And therein lies the power, beauty and heart-rending truth of Jesus's Greatest Commandment. It's not enough to love God with everything I have and forget my neighbor. They are mutual expressions. I cannot love God without loving my neighbor. These two expressions are the foundation of faith, of life with God. You can't be a people-hater and please God. You can't be a people-lover if you hate yourself. Following this equation through mathematically we find that:
Loving God < Loving God + Loving Others ONLY IF Loving Others = Loving Yourself
It's not that loving God isn't primary, because it is. Jesus said so. What Jesus is expressing, what he is establishing as truth, what he is forcing the Religious to accept since they ignore it, is that we can't love God unless we love others AND ourselves. How could we be capable of showing God love if we don't show love to those whom He created?
This is why I have a hard time with love, because through Jesus Christ I know that love requires me to give everything I am over to it. With all my mind, heart and physicality I am called to care for anyone and everyone, including God. To put it simply, this is impossible.
Except that, with God, nothing is impossible. At least nothing that He calls us to.
God has called us to this love. Through the life and voice of Jesus His son he shows and tells that this is the way to love and the way to live. It is His Way, and it is supremely important. And it is doable because He makes us able. When you give over your heart, mind and body to loving this way, God fills in the gaps. He gives the emotional support and empathy. He provides the vision and peaceful thinking. He gives words and intelligence, urges us to give a hug when it's needed, to hold back when it's not. To pat shoulders and say "attaboy" at the perfect time. If God is love, then turning to Him is the best way to learn how to do it. Which is why turning to Him is the Greatest Commandment.
The truth is not that I have a hard time with love, but that I have a hard time with selflessness. And selfless is possibly the most important thing to be. That's what Jesus did. That's what he said. The most selfless man who lived, who said of his murderers, "Forgive them." In selflessness love resides. And God is always love.
Very nice and helpful information has been given in this article
ReplyDelete