Love God, Love Your Neighbor
“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.” Matthew 22:34-40 NRSV
For those who have chosen to accept Jesus's great invitation, making Him Savior and Lord of their entire lives, Jesus' simple instruction is to "Love God" and to "Love your neighbor as yourself." All of the Old Testament law can be summed up in these two commands.
But in our own strength, these words from Jesus are impossible to live out. But Jesus has not left us alone. He promised those who know Him a Helper and Advocate. The Holy Spirit is our power source that enables you and me under the duress of any circumstance to fulfill Jesus's commands - to love God and our neighbor.
We must stay connected to our power source. Or, as Jesus put it, "abide in me and I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me (John 15:4)."
Have you become unplugged from your power source - the Holy Spirit - leaving you exhausted and anxious?
What would it look like for you to arrange your life in a way that the Holy Spirit could transform you from the inside out enabling you to love God and your neighbor more fully?
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