Jesus' Answer to Religion

36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:36-40)

Love thy neighbor was, in part, Jesus' answer when the Pharisees, the chief religious sect of that day, asked Him about the greatest commandment in the Law. These religious leaders had made almost an art form of classifying all the various laws and giving them relative degrees of importance, so in asking Jesus this question, their aim was to test Him. His answer stunned them: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
Jesus was summing up all the law in these two statements. If we love the Lord God with all our heart, soul and mind, loving our neighbor is the natural result.
The question then is, who is our neighbor, and how do we love him or her?
Let's look at who Jesus says our neighbor is: You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. (Matthew 5:43)
Is our neighbor more than the guy next door? Could he or she be someone in our community or almost anyone we meet? Could our enemies also be our neighbors? Jesus says that it's so. But how can we love someone who acts hatefully toward us?
When we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, we grow to recognize that everyone is part of His creation. His Word tells us that God desires that all would be saved (1Timothy 2:4). So it's clear that God sees all of us as His children. Because He lives outside of time and has seen the end from the beginning, He also knows who will choose salvation and who will not. For us, that is where faith comes in. It is not for us to know who will choose Him and who will not, but we are called to be His witnesses. In order to fulfill that calling, we must love others enough to desire their salvation just as He does.
Jesus is not talking about love as an emotion, He is speaking about love as a choice we make. It is a choice to be compassionate, forgiving, kind, and accepting.
Here's the good news for those who find this teaching difficult: Nowhere does it say we have to like our neighbor! However, we must make a conscious choice to love our neighbor whether we like them or not, whether they like us or not, whether they are mean to us or not, or whether we agree with them or not. That is what Jesus was trying to tell the Pharisees. That is Jesus' answer to religion.

Peace and love,

Sue

"Then Jesus said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me". (Luke 9:23)