Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This
is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself.
Matthew 22:37-39
Did you know that there are two
commandments that, if you obey those two, you will automatically be obeying
every other commandment written in the Bible? To help you better understand
this concept, let’s take a look at the Ten Commandments:
1. “You shall have no other gods
before me.”
2. “You shall not make for yourself
any idol.”
3. “You shall not take the name of
God in vain.”
4. “Remember the Sabbath Day, to
keep it holy.”
There is a reason why Jesus
answered the question, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” the
way that He did. You see the Ten Commandments are broken up into two parts. The
first four are regarding our relationship with God, and the last six are
regarding our relationship with our fellow man.
5. “Honor your father and your
mother.”
6. “You shall not murder.”
7. “You shall not commit adultery.”
8. “You shall not steal.”
9. “You shall not lie.”
10. “You shall not covet.”
Jesus’ answer is really
self-explanatory. If I love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, I
will not worship any other god, I will not commit idolatry, I will not use
blasphemy, and I will use the Lord’s Day as a day of rest and worship.
Likewise, if I love my neighbor as myself, I will honor my parents, I will not
commit murder, I will not commit adultery, I will not steal, I will not lie,
and I will not covet my neighbors possessions. It really is as simple as that.
Having said all that, the moral
crisis that we are in as a nation today is a direct result of the breaking of
what Jesus said are the greatest commandments ever written. Now, I know what
some of you are thinking: “Why can’t we just obey the last six and forget about
the first four”? The reason is simple—the last six and the first four go hand
in hand. Take the first commandment for example—“You shall have no other gods
before me.” To obey this commandment is to obey the last six commandments. If I
serve the god of self, what is keeping me from dishonoring my parents? What is
keeping me from committing murder? What is keeping me from committing adultery?
What is keeping me from stealing? Lying? Coveting? In order to obey the last
six commandments, I must love God and realizes that breaking any of the last
six commandments is wrong only because God said so. Simple as that.
Now, let’s apply this to the days
in which we are now living. Psalm 33:12 says, “Blessed is the nation whose God
is the LORD.” If we as a nation would put God first in everything we do, I
really do believe we would receive blessings like you wouldn’t believe. Matthew
6:33 says, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and
all these things shall be added unto you.” When we neglect God, we deprive
ourselves of His greatest blessings.
Today, we are killing our unborn at
a rate that you would not believe. My friend, your unborn child is your neighbor. If every mother’s
child loved his neighbor as himself, every abortion clinic in this world would
go bankrupt. Listen carefully to what I’m about to say. If everyone truly loved
his neighbor as he does himself, the murder rate would go down, the divorce
rate would go down, and the overall crime rate would go down. There would be no
lying. There would be no stealing. Every home would be a happy home.
As you go about your day today, let
me challenge you to ask yourself this question before you say or do anything:
By doing this, am I honoring God and am I treating my neighbor the way I would
want my neighbor to treat me? I truly believe that asking yourself that
question will make a great change in you and a great change in our nation.
If you do not know Jesus Christ as
Lord of your life, I beg you to do so today. You cannot truly love God with all
your heart soul, mind, and strength until you come to repentance and faith in
Jesus Christ. Likewise, you cannot love your neighbor as yourself until you
realize how much God loves you. If you will repent of your sin and trust in
Jesus Christ alone to save you, He will save you today and keep you saved forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment
This blog is intended to help you. I want to be able to post all comments and questions you might have, so I ask that you follow a few rules in order for me to do that. Any questions/comments that don't follow these guidelines will be thrown out:
1. Absolutely no profane, blasphemous, or immoral comments.
2. Comments containing links will not be approved.
3. Please keep your comments relevant to the post on which you are commenting. All irrelevant comments will be rejected. Remember, your comments should be helpful to other readers as well.
Thank you so much for reading!