"What is the greatest commandment?" Asked a scribe.
Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear O Israel: The LORD our GOD is ONE. And you shall love the LORD your God With all of your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all of your strength.' The second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yoursel.' There is no other commandment greater than these.'"
Great love, great minds, great souls, and great strength all come the beauty of loving God first and ourselves enough so that we can love others. Easy to say. Hard to do.
Do you ever struggle with the raw emotion of I can't love like that? Lol! Good! Neither can I! But in Christ Jesus we can. When the raw emotion hits, we surrender to the LORD and He can give us what we need to love with His kind of love. We choose to love Him so much we invite Him into our raw emotion and give it to Him. I promise you will be amazed at how quick you will be in recovering you.
When I struggle with this in the moment, I realize it is when I put the commandments out of order. I love me before I love God. I want what I want when I want it. Ugh! It is pretty ugly when I do this. I hate it in me and I hate it in others. Grrrr!
But when I get it right, I might actually be protecting someone from experiencing the war with in me and when God should deem it so, the other might even know they just met truly divine love despite me. I want this! Don't you?
Father, help us to pause and invite You into our moments and give You permission to show us how to be strong in love, in our mind, in our soul, and in our strength toward You so we can love others as You do! In Jesus name amen
