SCRIPTURE
Jesus replied, ‘This is the first: Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the one Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You must love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.’
Mark 12:29-31
OBSERVATION
Jesus is replying to a question from a scribe, ‘Which is the first of all the commandments?’ No doubt the question was more about testing Jesus than from a real desire to know. But Jesus took the question at face value and went deeper with it, knowing it would reveal not only a truth to the world but a truth about the scribe himself. The scribe was taken past his cynicism to a genuine truth that lay deeper within him: he loved God and he loved others. The scribe's spontaneous response showed who he really was and led Jesus to proclaim, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’
APPLICATION
Loving God and loving others does that. It gets past all my human pride, my judgmental-ism, my greed, my lustfulness. In short, it gets past my brokenness, which is still there like the scribe's, and allows the real me to shine... the me God made me to be. It truly is the most important thing for me today.
PRAYER
Lord Jesus, today I want to be not far from the Kingdom of God. Teach me how to love.
Little Flower, please pray for me.
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