The Hokey-Pokey Is Not What It's All About!

Love thy neighbor as thyself.  What does that mean to you?  To me, it is one of the hardest mandates that Jesus gave to us.  Here is the conversation that Jesus had about this topic :

Matthew 22:36-40King James Version (KJV)

36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38 This is the first and great commandment.

39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Jesus told us that loving God and loving people are what this crazy life we live is really all about.  We have to get up, take a shower, make breakfast and put out the garbage, but, loving God and one another is what it's all about.  We have to get our kids dressed, fed, off to school and ourselves to work but, loving God and people are what it's all about.  We have to decide what we will study in school and manage our career but, loving God and people are what it's all about.  That is rather dramatic isn't it?

We often choose other priorities in our life and fail to choose love as the center of it.  Some people are so jaded they don't think love even really exists. Maybe they have had some bad experiences with people and can't seem to get past that.  But, in the above biblical verses, Jesus tells us that everything hinges upon love.  Jesus is not jaded about love at all.  It is not enough to just obey God. No, it should go deeper than that. The meaning of our life is to love God.  Our life begins to get better when we do this. We can dutifully do the right thing at work and secretly hate our boss. Nope, that is not the meaning of love. Or, we can go to church every Sunday while ignoring how much we hate our next door neighbor for playing basketball when we are trying to sleep, but this is not loving God or your neighbor.

The growing narcissism in our world is a direct result of the decline of belief and love of the one-true God.  The belief and following of false gods, throughout the Biblical discourse, and in present times, always results in the uptick of selfishness. As a society moves farther away from a God-centric point of view, the message of service to others becomes less of a priority.  Marriage becomes less of a priority, and children can seem more of an incumbrance than the blessing they are.  We lose the deep truth of why honoring our parents is so important and the results are apparent.  Just look at the terrible neglect of elders in nursing homes. It used to be quite common for churches, Girl Scout troops and various civic groups to visit hospitals, nursing homes and the sick in our community.  I had these experiences growing up but today I see less and less churches even keeping up with the elders among their own congregation.  At the heart of all these societal problems is the problem of love!
NEXT THURSDAY: Some thoughts on how to better love God and one another.