The Great Commandment

Matt 22:37-39 – Jesus said unto him, 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 great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself.

The Lord Jesus was approached to identify the most important rule in the Word of GOD , the most important principle that every Jew must adopt and live by, the highest law that our Saviour, the King of the Universe see as important.
The Lord Jesus teaches us that the GREATEST COMMANDMENT IN THE BIBLE IS:

TO unconditionally love GOD. The word love is the Greek Agapao, a verb, an action word. We are to actively, unconditionally love GOD.

How are we to do that?
Inwardly – with all thy heart. The heart is the seat of life and the center of the person. The heart represents all the issues of life, and where our existence springs out of. GOD wants us to love Him with all that we have. We are to love GOD inwardly.

Decisively – with all thy soul. The place of our decisions, and emotions, the place of our feelings and our affections. We are to love GOD in our soul, our affections and ambitions of life, ought to be centred on him alone. How often does our affections take us away from where GOD is: we would love the things of this world, we would replace GOD with the lusts and pleasures of this life. We need to love GOD decisively: in all decisions, GOD’s place must be at the forefront, and we need to decisively put Him there because HE is worthy, HE is our Saviour and Lord, He is deserving of our affections! We are to love GOD decisively.

Mentally – with all our mind. Our thoughts of GOD must be holy, and pure. It must be guided by the word and the spirit of the bible. Our thoughts and mental images of who GOD is must be influenced by the Holy Spirit, speaking through His scriptures. The centering of our mind on Him reveals the priority we put on GOD, the very first place. We need to love GOD mentally.

To unconditionally love our neighbours. The word neighbour means fellowman, christian, near kin. It implies that we are to love mankind, as ourselves. The Lord puts no distinction between who we are to love. Man does that, through prejudice, through personal thoughts and thinking, we split men into categories whereby we decide if we want to love them or not. GOD’s injunction is that if we unconditionally love GOD, we need to do so with man too. Because when we love GOD in a holy condition, whereby the heart, soul and mind are saturated with GOD, GOD requires that we demonstrate that same love for a brother, an individual or a person in need.

How is your love today? Are you doing the Great Commandment? When we fail of the Great Commandment, we will not be doing the Great Commission. Lord teach us to love you unconditionally and then to love our family, our brothers and the lost , that the world may know you.

Evangelist – Pastor Johnny Tan
Ambassador Baptist Church