Thursday, October 23, 2014

Simple, practical ... so hard!

MATTHEW 22:34-40
When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 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.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. and a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
God,
I love simple.
I love practical.
When asked about the greatest commandment of the law,
I really appreciate how simple and practical you made the law.
Love God.
Love neighbor.

That's it.
That's enough.
So simple; so practical;
so hard!!

God,
I looked it up
"love" here is the greek "agape"
that unconditional I Corinthians 13 kind of love.

Loving you and loving our neighbors
being in loving self-giving relationships
is what I am made for.
And yet it is a daily struggle.

Unconditionally loving you
with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind
is total commitment, nothing held back, ALL IN!
By the power of the Holy Spirit,
I'm trying!

Unconditionally loving my neighbor (all of them!) as myself...
What does that mean?
Well, I think about myself, my needs, my worries, my fears, and
what other people think of me all the time...
If I thought of my neighbors like that, their needs, their fears, their worries
I would treat them differently
with more compassion, more grace, more forgiveness, more love.

By the power of your Holy Spirit,
help me unconditionally love.
In the name of the One
who demonstrated how to unconditionally love you
the One who was/and is ALL IN!
In the name of the One
who unconditionally loves all neighbors (even those who killed him)
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

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