The greatest commandment

Sunday once again!! What a great weather early in the morning today! I went to church to worship as usual. Thank God that my voice has been greatly recovered, I was able to praise the Lord through worship. It is always a great time for me!

Today, we had our Bible study class as usual after worship. This time, the topic is about the greatest commandment among all the commandments.  The answer can be found in the scripture, the gospel of Mark Chapter 12:28-34 which was given by Jesus Christ himself. It says,” Hear, O Israel! Our God, your Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The second is this,” you shall love your neighbors like yourself. There is no other commandment better than these two.”

I am curious of the reason why God reminded me for many times regarding the same scripture. I have heard a lot of preaching and sharing, they were all about this topic, the greatest commandment. I still don’t know the exact reason but I found that is definitely not a complete occasion without any purpose behind. However, during the class, I am being impressed by the interpretation of this scripture from the perspective of the speaker.

Why did God need to mention about Lord is one to his people? That is a very essential theology in Christianity that every follower in Christ ought to know. But he wants to emphasize that our God is only one, there is no other God besides the Lord. Since he is one, we shall not worship other God but to worship him alone! Besides that, he requires us to love him with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our soul and with all our strength. With all these details, actually he tries to give us a great message precisely about the correct attitude to love him.

We can never be able to love someone truly without the right understanding of love, so God gave us a guideline on how to love him truly and worship him faithfully. What is meant by “with all your heart”? God wants to rule absolutely in your heart. In order to love someone truly, you need to put him into your heart. If you want to love him completely, you need to fill your heart with him thoroughly. Without having God to rule your heart thoroughly, we are not able to love him wholeheartedly.

Apart from that, what is meant by “with all your soul”? Regarding the soul, I think that is about emotion. We need to feel something for a person in order to love him truly. We need to love God with emotions! Pray moodily, worship joyfully, serve cheerfully! It is about emotion! Many couples broke out, with a script “I have no feeling towards you now, sorry.” Haha!! So how can we love God without soul?

Besides that, what is meant by “with all your mind”? I would like to believe that God wants us to love him with understanding. We cannot love God truly unless we have a correct understanding of love. God doesn’t want us to love him without wisdom. God wants us to know that how great he is and how worthy he is through the word of Bible and the wonderful creations in the world. With all these awareness and knowledge, we are able to love him deeply! God doesn’t want us to believe in him blindly for he doesn’t want us to love him purposelessly.

Other than that, what is meant by “with all your strength”? I would like to believe that God wants us to love him with action and effort. The affection is not only expressed through words and praises but also with action and effort! Love can never be whole without actions; affection can never be assured without effort. It is like faith without action is dead!!

Never believe that there are many important messages in this wonderful scripture. Thank God for the wisdom and the grace of revealing this wonderful message! I think it is not easy to fulfill the commandment, but please do help me to fulfill that with your help!!