Happy Wednesday, dear readers! I wrote this devotional a few weeks ago & decided to share it's very simple challenging message with you.
Plunge through your week with great measures of thankfulness & grace, friends. Talk with you soon.
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In Luke 10, a lawyer challenged Jesus with this question. “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered in verse 27, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
If you’re like me, you find that law odd. Jesus says that this is the way to life. He says that these are the two things that we need in order to follow Him. After the whole book of Leviticus, after all of the ten commandments, He chooses to sum it up like this? To sum it up in love?
As I was thinking about this passage, a realization came over me.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:17 it says, “Pray without ceasing.” Yet another command in Mark 11:25 states, “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” These are not suggestions.
Can any of these commandments be fulfilled without love? We cannot pray without ceasing if we’re not always doing something worth praying over. We also cannot forgive our neighbor if we don’t have a right relationship with God knowing what extremities He has went to forgive us of our sin.
This is how we can fruitfully live: we love God and our neighbor. Truly, if we follow these two commandments the rest will fall into place as we walk with Him.
-Emilee
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