February 18 - Mark 12:33

February 18 - Mark 12:33

“and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

This response came from one of the Pharisees who had heard Jesus quote the Shema when asked about the greatest commandment.  The man had not only paid attention to the intent of Jesus’ words, but had also understood and figured out how to apply those words to the reality of their lives.

Jesus response to him in the next verse was just as interesting, “You are not far from the kingdom of God!”

Jesus Christ wants us desperately to understand that love is the greatest of all the commandments.  We can worry about how we live our lives each day, watching that we don’t sin in any number of ways, or we can learn to live our lives in love and in doing so, we will find no reason to worry about sin. 

When we spend those precious moments in our lives thinking and fretting over the negative things that happen around us, we toss away the opportunities that those moments give us to love someone else.  When we complain about how the world is treating us badly or snipe about the seemingly awful things that happen to us and to those around us, we miss chances to love.  When we are more concerned with the rules and social mores than we are with love … we misunderstand what Jesus came to teach us.

It’s about love – unfailing love for God and for each other, no matter who the other is.  God doesn’t call us to just love those who love us, but to love that annoying waitress or the coworker who seems intent on distracting us from our work, the driver who has cut us off in traffic and even the child who is bullying our own.  There is absolutely no one that God doesn’t call us to love.  He doesn’t give us approval to refuse to love people – even if we don’t like them very much.

This is what is important – more than anything else.