DAY 1 | DAY 2 | DAY 3 | DAY 4 | DAY 5 | DAY 6 | DAY 7 | DAY 8 | DAY 9 | DAY 10 | DAY 11 | DAY 12 |
Love God, Love Others
The scripture passage for today is Mark 12:28-34 and is one many of us are familiar with. Take time to read it and meditate what it is Jesus is telling us. Verse 30-31 states “Love the ord 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 greater commandment than these.”
Now, please bear with me as I jump around a little. Let’s go back further in the Bible to the beginning. The first verse of the Bible tells us that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Then in verses 26 and 27 of that same first chapter God says he made man in our image, in our (Trinity) likeness. God created everything from nothing. God, who put into place all the laws of science, started all of this outside the bounds of science. But then he did something special for us. He made us in His image. What has this got to do with our passage for today? The One who tells us to love him with our whole being is the one who created us in his image. He knows us better than we know ourself.
We can run through this life looking for fulfillment in many things, but the only thing that can bring us the ultimate peace is loving and serving our Creator. He knows how we are made and what brings that ultimate fulfillment.
And moving on to the second part – love your neighbor. You can take this at face value and go by the definition of neighbor which is a person living near or next door. But in doing that you would be wrong. It includes those who live in our neighborhood, but Jesus meant more.
In the book of Luke, Jesus defined neighbor by giving us the parable of the Good Samaritan.
The point of this story is that a Samaritan is the one who helped a Jewish man who was robbed, beaten, and left for dead. And just in case you didn’t know, the Jewish people and the Samaritans were not friendly towards each other. And the Samaritan did all this without being told thank you. He just did the right thing. So, to wrap this up. We are to love God with our whole being, the one who made us and sacrificed himself for us. And then to love all others we come into contact with.
What a different place this world would be if we all lived by this these commands.
– David Kellerman
Download the pdf for each devotion
DAY 1 | DAY 2 | DAY 3| DAY 4| DAY 5| DAY 6 | DAY 7 | DAY 8| DAY 9 | DAY 10 | DAY 11 | DAY 12