[Jesus said] “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Devotion based on Mark 12:30,31

It can be easy to believe that we are good enough for heaven all on our own. One might think: ‘I haven’t killed anyone or stolen anything, and I haven’t cheated on my spouse. I’m doing just fine. God will take me to heaven because I have kept most of his commandments and have not broken the big ones.’

God has certainly commanded us not to kill, steal, or commit adultery, but Jesus says the commandment to love others is even greater than these. And there certainly have been plenty of times we have failed to keep this commandment. We maybe didn’t kill anyone, but perhaps we also failed to help a person in need. It might be that we never stole from anyone, but it could likely be that we were resentful toward them and their prosperity. And even though we may never have physically cheated on our spouse, how often did we fail to be there for them when they needed us? God’s command to love goes further than simply to avoid harming someone else. It means to always seek the good of the other person.

The commandment to love our neighbor involves more than we realize. But Jesus doesn’t refer to it as a greater commandment because of all the ways it can be broken. Rather, he has in mind how loving each other is a reflection of the love God showed us in sending Jesus. God has loved us like no other ever could. He willingly sacrificed his own Son for the well-being of others. He gave up what was most precious to him so we could be saved from our sin. For all the times we have failed to love others, Jesus bled and died to remove those sins from us. In love, he has set us free forever.

Prayer: