We all know the 10 commandments. We learned them in cute little songs in Sunday school, where we got stickers that said "Jesus Loves YOU!" when we memorized all 10 of them. In Matthew 22, the Pharisees were so determined to catch Jesus off guard just to prove he was not the son of God. One of them, the bible says, was an expert in the law. He asked Jesus in verse 36 "Jesus, which is the greatest commandment in the law?" and the bible says:
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
If you know anything about me, or better yet, if you SHOULD know anything about me, it's that my favorite scripture in the bible is 1 Corinthians 13. It is the most thorough explaination of what love is, what it isn't, what it consists of, and how valuable it is. Love never fails. I began to think why love was so important that Jesus would say it was the greatest commandment to love the Lord your God and that the second would also be about love: to love your neighbor as yourself.
I kept thinking. Why Love?
Then it hit me.
John 3:16. For God so LOVED the world.
1 John 4:8 says:
"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. "
All of a sudden I had a different explaination for my favorite scripture in the bible. Replace the word love with God from verses 1-12. Paul then ends it by saying that out of hope, faith, and love the greatest is love.
Lets go back to John 3:16. God is love. And because he so LOVED the world, he gave us a second chance, a chance to redeem ourselves through the blood of his only son. Because God so loved the world, God is patient, God is kind, God never fails....because Love is God. God is Love.
God so loved the world, that He gave his one and only son. So it had to be through love, that Jesus hung on the cross for US. I am pretty sure He hung on that cross thinking "If my father loves them, then I have to do this" because love does not seek its own. Through Love, God keeps forgiving us because love keeps no record of wrong. Through love, the Holy Spirit was given to us to guide us because love always protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres.
It is with love that we experience the most crucial moments in our lives. Women, with love, give birth to their babies. It is with love that we are raised. It is with love that we join to another in marriage. It is with love that we are sexually intimate with our spouse (making love!).
With that same love, the greatest commandment is that we are to give our hearts, soul, and minds to God, because it was love that caused Him to give his only son for us. With that same love, we are to love our neighbors, because Jesus died for them too.
Because He so loved the world. We should too.
"Many waters cannot quench this love". It makes, to me, so much sense now.
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