Showing posts with label least. Show all posts
Showing posts with label least. Show all posts

The Simple Truth…

Matthew 22:36-40…"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

What’s interesting to me about this scripture is how the two commands are similar/circular. If you ask the questions, how can I love God, how can I show my love for God, how can I prove to God that I love Him, scripture answers it by saying that your love for God is revealed by following His commands. What is His most important command other than loving Him? Loving one another. So, in reality, to show your love for God, you are commanded to love your neighbor as yourself….THAT is showing your love for God. And notice, the command isn’t just to love your neighbor….it’s to love your neighbor as yourself. In other words, putting their importance, and their needs, on the same level as yours. It’s like sharing yourself with the world. Instead of being this little self contained entity, this center of the universe thing, you become part of all of humanity. Love is a spreading out of yourself…a giving up of yourself. He who is least is the greatest. He who is greatest is the servant of all. (Mark 9:35, Mark 10:33)

Matthew 7:12…So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

John 14:21…Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."

John 15:10…If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.

John 13:34…"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

John 13:35…By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

Romans 13:8…Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.

1Peter 1:22…Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.

1John 3:11…This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

1John 3:23…And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

1John 4:7…Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

1John 4:11…Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

1John 4:12…No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

2John 1:5…And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another.

1 Peter 4:10…Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.

Matthew 25:34-40…"Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ "Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ "The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Is the love that is in you, finding its way out?

Was Jesus GOD?

  Here is what scripture says:   1Co 8:6 But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord...