March 6

Matthew 22:37-40 (Click to see scripture)

Bible in One Year Passages:

Journal Entry

Scripture

And he 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 first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Observation

Before Jesus' time, commandments had been complex, hard to understand, and hard to follow. Yet Jesus, knowing and in full alignment with God's will, summarized the entire commandment in simple and elegant manner that we can easily understand:
* to love God with all my heart, soul, and mind and
* to love my neighbor as myself.

Application

What matters is not about myself, but rather how much I love the Lord and my neighbors. Jesus saw that without being legalistic, or becoming entangled in an intellectual discussion, God simply wants me to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, and mind. In the same way, I am to love my neighbor as myself. That is, I need to place God above me, making it all about God and not about me. In terms of relationship with other, I need to place others at the very least equal to me, not below me. I need to always remember and live out the humility of placing God and others before me.

Prayer

Lord, I pray that my life would not be centered around myself, but rather that it be centered around you and only you. I also ask for your spirit to constantly remind me to bring humility to my life so that I value all those around me. Amen.

--Peter Kim