Image from http://www.the-ten-commandments.org
While you're at it, get some for yourself!
This is Wednesday of Holy Week. Much was said by Jesus during this last week of his earthly life and I've chosen to highlight this passage from Matthew 22: 34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" 37 He said to him, " "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
If you grew up attending Sunday school, what stands out as the greatest teaching about God? This is basically what the Pharisees were asking Jesus, but with a malicious intent. They knew the Law and expected all people to know the Law as well. They knew this passage in their scriptures read that this was the great commandment, but so did Jesus and He shares it with them: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is first found in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 6, as part of the central teaching of the Jewish faith called The Shema. It is a great commandment because it focuses on God and our need to love God with all we have; our heart, our soul and our mind. Every aspect of our being must be filled with love for God because we know that God is filled with love for us. Yet, Jesus adds on to it something He read in Leviticus 19:18 as a commandment equally as important: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Then He adds, "These two commandments hold all the laws and the prophets together. And if we follow them, it might just hold us together, too.
We should love ourselves in a positive way. No with conceit or arrogance assuming a posture that we are better in any sense of the world than everybody else, but with the proper respect and gratitude for being who we are regardless of anything else. This assumes our knowing God made us and in the right light, e.g. God's, we are worthy of love. And with that love that we should have for ourselves we should love others, no exceptions. Think of bitter people, many of them at their core, do not love themselves. They criticize others, make fun of others maliciously, and all because they think they have been mocked and criticized as well, and it's usually in their own minds.
Keep it all together with love. Love God. Give Him all you got. Love yourself in a healthy, positive way. Apply that same love to those around you. No exceptions.
PRAYER: AWESOME GOD, we love you with all we have, and we pray You should help us love ourselves. Help us overlook negative thoughts about ourselves that others may have put in our thinking to know that You love us, warts and all. And with that same love, help us apply it to our neighbors who are everybody we see and know. We pray this in the One who loves us enough to die for us, Jesus our Lord, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!
Eradio Valverde
Prepare your hearts for worship tomorrow in the house of God where you attend.
