Love God, Love People

Matthew 22:36-40

'Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?'

Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.'  

What am I doing with my life? You may have asked yourself this very question recently. It’s pretty common around this time of year. I blame the New Year's resolution thing. We reflect on the previous year, ask all sorts of existential questions and have a mild panic that we’re wasting our lives. 

As followers of Jesus, we often have an additional dimension to this existential crisis. It manifests in some variation of the following question. 'What is God’s call on my life?' We worry about getting the big decisions in life right: what degree to pick, what job to do, which city to live in, what church to go to. We want to stay inside God’s will for our lives in these big decisions. 

Jesus, when summing up God’s will for our lives, gave two commandments: Love God and love people. All other commandments could be wrapped up in these two. 

I’d like to put it to you that, in 2022, God cares infinitely more about how you live your life than what you do with it. You can love God and love people pretty much anywhere, doing any job, at any church. It doesn’t mean these big decisions aren’t important, they’re just lower down the list than the ‘small decisions’ to spend time with God every day or treat your boss with love and respect. Let’s make a commitment to surrender the small decisions to God this year. 

Prayer — Holy Spirit, please help me to love God and love people today.