“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matt 22:37-40

While the religious leaders tried to trip Jesus up once more, He responds with simple but powerful words summarizing what Christ followers are to do —basically summarizing all the law and the prophets, all that the religious leaders spent all day every day on, into two commandments.

Just two.

Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and love others as you love yourself.

With everything I’ve got I’m to love God and then as naturally as I think about me, as I love and care for myself, I’m to love others in this way.

That’s really clear and really hard.

Its impossible for us to do this from a buckled-down, try-harder religious effort.

No, this kind of powerful love for God and others comes only as we seek God in daily relationship and let Him flow through us to love those we encounter.

Because, first we all have hearts prone to wander from God. We love our own ways and our own wills, and we often get in our own way of loving God first.

Jesus told us we’d have to deny ourselves and He knew exactly what He was talking about.

Second, we will encounter some absolutely hard-to-love boogers in this life.

Yet God-in-us can help us love the unlovely because He loves us so very well. When we remember Jesus loved us and died for us before we ever loved Him or did one good thing for Him, it helps us love others.

And just like every other thing God ever asks of us, when we obey, we find blessing.

In fact, as someone once said when we prioritize Jesus, Others and then You, you’ll find JOY!

J-Jesus
O-Others
Y-You

May God strengthen us all to walk this out in this day.

What a Savior!

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