blog-maryBlog - Joyful Curmudgeon - Blog
A Mary T. Hoffman Commentary from All-Creatures.org

 

"Joyful Curmudgeon" An oxymoron?
No! I see all the beauty of God's creation and I'm joyful.  At the same time, I see all the suffering and corruption going on in the world, and feel called to help expose and end it so that we may have true peace and compassion.

 


The First Two Commandments – 16 February 2007
By Mary T. Hoffman

Matthew 22:37-40 of the New Testament shows how obeying the first two commandments fulfills all the others.

37. And He [Jesus] said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’

38. “This is the great and foremost commandment.

39. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’

40. “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

Jesus simplifies what humans seem to complicate. In essence He is saying that it all comes down to love: First love God; then love others. It is obvious that if we love others, we won’t break the rest of the commandments. Yet, to this day many people tend to make something complicated out of something simple.

A lot of people mouth the words but don’t really act on them. They say they love God, but by buckling under to “social pressure” they prove that they love the opinion of other people more than they love the Lord. They also end up “making God in their own image” by finding passages in the Bible to excuse their tendency to live in self-indulgence rather than to try to live by a higher standard, as expressed by Jesus’ statement, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do because I go to the Father.” (John 14:12)

If we really love the Lord, we will try to learn to live in a way pleasing to Him, and to care for all of His creation – without exception.

Go on to: “The Snowman in the Yard” – 17 February 2007
Return to: Bonobos – 15 February 2007
Return to: Blog - Main Page
Return to: Archive - By Date
Return to: Archive - By Subject

See Readers Comments