We know we are called to love God as our highest priority. Jesus added a second commandment to that one saying, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We know the commandments of Christ, but do we live them?

Why did Jesus command the impossible? We know what Jesus said, but how many times have you broken his commands—since yesterday? We can learn to love our neighbors, but how do we love them like we love ourselves? If we can find that answer, we can keep the Great Commandments.

The key is in the word love. The Greek word Jesus used was agape, meaning the love of God. Therein lies the answer. Human love will rarely, if ever, love someone more than they love themselves. Human love is limited, and it’s the best we can do. In other words, we can’t keep the Great Commandments apart from our great God.

Only God can produce agape love. He is the only source of unselfish, perfect, generous love. The only way to obey Jesus’ commandment is to know we can’t obey Jesus’ commandment without God’s love. We can’t have agape love for our neighbors until Jesus gives us that love. Only then do we have that love to give away to others.

When the Great Commandments become our great priority, we will understand our great need for God. We will run to the source of agape love rather than offer our limited efforts. 

Jesus was telling the well-behaved Pharisees that their love for God wasn’t working. If the Pharisees had truly loved God, they would have had his love for others. 

God’s priorities are wisdom. God’s patience with sin is immeasurable. God’s love for others is perfect. When we need to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, we know how to do that. We can fill our hearts with God’s love, and then we will have his agape love for our neighbors.