The Greatest Commandments

Text - Matthew 22:37

“Though our feelings come and go, God’s love for us does not.” —C.S. Lewis

The only way that we can possibly hope to love ourselves and others in a healthy way, is if we see the value that the Almighty God places on us with His love for us. God loves each one of us and has made each one of us uniquely. We are special to Him and He loves us with an unconditional love. The love of God changes our view of ourselves, we begin to see our value and worth. We begin to like ourselves, and receive the love that God gives to us freely.

This changes our view of God, and we begin to love Him because He first loved us. The love of God fills a void in the heart of every man - and completes the longing we experience in life. The love of God changes our view of others, when we realize how special that people are to God we begin to see humanity in a different light. Instead of looking down on others for all sorts of things, or feeling insecure all the time because we never feel like we measure up, we rest securely in the love of God for His special creation.

It helps us love those who many people would deem unloveable, because we too were unloveable - but yet Jesus loved us! We can live a life of love, because of Jesus - Love is the Answer.

Let’s Read:
Matthew 22 (NKJV)

1 And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said: 
2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, 
3 and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding; and they were not willing to come. 
4 Again, he sent out other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.” ’ 
5 But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. 
6 And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them. 
7 But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. 
8 Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. 
9 Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding.’ 
10 So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests.
11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. 
12 So he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. 
13 Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.”
15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted how they might entangle Him in His talk. 
16 And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth; nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men. 
17 Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”
18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, “Why do you test Me, you hypocrites? 
19 Show Me the tax money.” So they brought Him a denarius.
20 And He said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?”
21 They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” 
22 When they had heard these words, they marveled, and left Him and went their way.
23 The same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Him and asked Him, 
24 saying: “Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up offspring for his brother. 
25 Now there were with us seven brothers. The first died after he had married, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother. 
26 Likewise the second also, and the third, even to the seventh. 
27 Last of all the woman died also. 
28 Therefore, in the resurrection, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her.”
29 Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. 
30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven. 
31 But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, 
32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” 
33 And when the multitudes heard this, they were astonished at His teaching.
34 But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 
35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 
40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 
42 saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?” They said to Him, “The Son of David.”
43 He said to them, “How then does David in the Spirit call Him ‘Lord,’ saying:
44 ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand,
Till I make Your enemies Your footstool” ’?
45 If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his Son?” 
46 And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore. —Matthew 22:1-46 (NKJV)

Memorize

Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ —Matthew 22:37

The GREATEST COMMANDMENTS

Jesus states that the two greatest commands are to love the

with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as

Reveal Answer

.

Most people

themselves, but many people don’t “

Reveal Answer

” themselves.

So many people in our society are struggling to accept God’s Love and Love Others because they don’t

themselves very much.

Too many people see themselves as

and this causes the two greatest commandments to be halted in our lives.

LOVE

is the distinguishing mark of the church because we don’t have this kind of love naturally.

Human love is dependent upon the

who is

Reveal Answer

.

love says, “As long as you are doing something for me I can love you, but when you stop doing things for me and when you stop being the person I thought I married, when you begin to cause me difficulty, and when hardships come into the relationship, I’m out of here,” because human loves says I can only take so much. It is only divine love that endures. It’s the love of 1 Corinthians 13.

This is why so many people struggle with “loving” themselves. They look at themselves through the lens of human love. They see and know their flaws and weaknesses and secretly feel

because they convince themselves that if anyone else ever found out about their “issues” there is no way they would be loved.

Reveal Answer

does not love the same way that humans do.

Divine love is based on the

.
Divine love says, “I can love you even if you

Reveal Answer

because the love of God is coming into my heart. It is shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit, so I can put up with you. And I can endure all things,” as we read in the text, “because the love is coming from God.”

That’s the kind of love that God had for

. It says in Romans 5: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—(but now notice) but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

He loved us when there was as yet no

whatever from us. He loved us when we were very, very unlovable, and He loved us anyway.

That’s why divine love is the fruit of the Spirit. You read 1 Corinthians 13, and what do we have? We have a discussion here of what the fruit of the Spirit looks like. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy! It’s

. It comes from above. It is not generated by your nature or my nature. It comes to us from God, and that’s why we can love.

Maybe you have never experienced the Love of God in this way. A love that is not based on

or what you are able to do for God, but the fact that He loves you and sees value in you even when you don’t see it in yourself.

So what can you do that will enable you to completely and fully experience God’s love for your life?

• Ask God to forgive you, and remove any sin from your life - All of us have past mistakes and sins, many times it is those things that cloud our perception to the fact that Jesus loves us no matter what. The devil will use those things to make you feel unloved and unworthy of love. So ask God to cleanse you of all those things today! There is no one that is worthy, but there is a proper way to deal with your guilt and shame - that is to turn it over to God and LEAVE IT THERE! That is when Love can come in.
• Be Baptized in Jesus’ Name - to wash you completely. His love made a way for you to be clean - why not take that step today to be identified with Him in baptism and have every stain from your past washed away?
• Be filled with God’s love through receiving His Spirit - God’s Spirit will enable you to love the unloveable and will bring joy and peace into your life everyday. When you receive it, you will speak in a language you didn’t learn in school. This is the initial evidence that you are receiving the same experience that they did in the church described in the book of Acts.
• If you have never had a personal Bible study that covered the main themes of the whole Bible, message us to get one started right away. You will not regret studying the Word of God. This is how we know and experience the love of God - through the understanding of His Word! If you aren’t quite ready to make that large of a commitment - start with completing 30 Days to Life devotional.

Once you understand divine love and begin to see the value God places on every one of us…it enables you to RECEIVE God’s Love, and then with God’s Love (divine love), you are able to begin loving OTHERS unconditionally and having the kind of incredible relationships that God intends for you to have.

Jesus says that everything else in life hinges upon us having the greatest commandments active in our lives. So let’s go after it today!