Been a while…but here we go….
This morning in chapel the message was about Matthew 22: 36-40. We also studied this verse as a team last week for baseball. It is a passage that you hear about a good amount as a Christian, but sometimes things just stick out and start to make sense as a part of God’s timing and perfect, sovereign will. Sometimes I will just read over stuff or not really think and meditate on a passage as I should as it says to in Joshua 1: 8. That being said, this morning in chapel was a wake-up call in a few regards. I was reminded what THE most important part of being a Christian truly is. For, if we have not love then we most definitely have to take a look inward into our hearts and examine our eternal destination. The part that stuck out to me the most, however, was verse 40. That verse basically says why the commandment to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” is paramount to all other commandments. The reason being because we can do all the other commandments in the Bible, but if we do not do them and abide in them with a loving heart then they mean nothing. We, as Christians, are to keep the commandments out of an overflow of a loving heart that comes from the love we have for God because of the grace and mercy he extended to us through Jesus Christ on the cross. We do not keep the commandments so that God will see us in a better light and that he may bless us for being “good.” It is only out of a loving and gracious heart…no self-seeking motives. Now, pertaining to verse 40, let me explain this a little more. When the Bible says that all the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments (the 2nd commandment being to love your neighbor as yourself) means that it does not really matter if you obey the commandments if your heart is not in the right place. That verse is essentially saying that it does not matter how good you think you are if you do not have the Love of God dwelling in the depths of your soul, and the only way to attain that Love is through the grace and mercy of God. We cannot attain that Love by doing more and more “good” things or keeping the commandments any better. Only through GRACE!!!!
