Thoughts

I read today in Matthew 22:37-40.

“… You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
“This is the great and first commandment.
“And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
“On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

This is the response Jesus gave to the question, “Which is the great commandment in the Law?” It all is built upon love of God. This is not a flippant admiration. It is love with all our heart, soul, and mind.

Our love and fear of God is to be the dominant thing in our life.

Our love of God will naturally spill over into love and concern for other people. We are to love and be concerned for others on this same level that we love and are concerned for ourselves.

This includes concern for their well-being in this life — but also concern for their eternal destiny.

It means we are to love them as fellow members of the human race, created in the image of our Creator God.  But even further, we must be deeply concerned that they will find faith in Christ and have a relationship with Him.

How can we as believers keep the message of the Christian Gospel to ourselves when others so desperately need to hear it.  If we really love someone, we certainly don’t want them to face the consequences of rejecting God’s offer of forgiveness of our sin.

May we all love God like this and have this level of love and concern for others.

That’s my Trumpet Blast for today.

Pat Pearce