Happy New Year! I hope that everyone reading this accomplish what they set out to do for this year. I have a novel that I plan on completing this year, hopefully this month, which is part of the reason why I haven’t been writing a lot of blogs. However, I wanted to start the New Year right by putting something on here for you to read. It’s from a book that I was working on, but I decided to scratch it to focus solely on my upcoming novel. I hope you enjoy!
Love in 2020
Jesus was asked by one of the Pharisees, “Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” In Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus told him that 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 greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Notice that he said that the second greatest commandment is like the first commandment about loving the Lord. He is basically saying that you cannot love yourself and others if you do not love the Lord. So, before you can have any love and respect for yourself and other human beings, you must love the one that created you and the Universe.
According to Jesus, the second greatest commandment is “love thy neighbor as thyself.” He also said that, “on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Love, in my opinion, is the most important concept in Christianity. Loving the Lord, loving your neighbor, honoring your mother and father, and even loving your enemies are things that we must do in order to be blessed by the Lord. Among practicing Christians, you would think this would be an easy concept to follow. However, if you’ve been around so-called Christians that go to church faithfully, you’ll notice the hypocrisy in a lot of their actions away from the church and sometimes even in the church.
So why do some of our fellow Christians act this way? I believe that with a lot of them, being holy is more about an image and recognition than about really loving the Lord. There is member of the church that uses it mostly for networking with other people. There is nothing wrong with that, however if you pick and choose who you want to communicate with, or if you gossip about other church members, you might want to take a hard look at yourself and figure out how to be a more loving Christian.
Of course, this is not hard to do; all the information you need is right in the Bible. For example, when regarding someone you might be gossiping about, think about what the Apostle said in 1 John 4:20. He said, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” This is aligned with what Jesus told the Pharisee about the two greatest commandments. If you want to make a serious effort to get closer to God, start by making an effort to love the people around you.
A Better Tomorrow 