Commandments – Counting My Blessings

Jesus took the 10 Commandments and in two short statements told His followers about the importance of loving and why it is the most important commandment. #Jesus #Commandments #Faith #BibleStudy #Prayer #CountingMyBlessings #BlessingBloggers #WWGGG

How important is it that you and I obey the commandments?
Is there a “most important commandment?”

You must not have any other god but me.
You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind.
You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
Honor your father and mother.
You must not commit adultery.
You must not steal.
You must not testify falsely against your neighbor.
You must not covet your neighbor’s house. You must not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.
Exodus 20:3-17

One day, a Pharisee, who was considered an “expert in religious law, tried to trap Jesus” with the following question:

“Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
Matthew 22:36

Notice he really didn’t want Jesus’ answer so he could better obey God. He wanted to engage Jesus in one of their favorite past times – self-righteous debate through rule qualifying.

But once again, Jesus understood their true motives. So, He simply summarized God’s Commandments in two short sentences…

“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
Matthew 22:37-–40

God is perfect unfailing everlasting love. If you and I want to honor and obey Him . . . love is the answer.

And because of sin, because of our self-centered selfishness it is impossible for us to love the way God wants without His Spirit’s help and we only have His Spirit’s help when we repent of that self-centered selfishness and surrender ourselves to the saving grace of Jesus.

To read more about what it means to love God with your “all” go to – How to Love God with All Your Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength.

And to read more about the meaning of loving others as you love yourself, check out – How to Love Your Neighbor as You Love Yourself.

But first, let’s go to the Lord…

A Prayer to Honor the Most Important Commandments

Father, thank you for Your perfect unfailing everlasting love. Thank you for generously demonstrating Your love by sending Jesus to suffer the punishment I deserved.

Please forgive me. I am selfish and self-centered. I fail every day to trust and love You completely. I stubbornly do things my own way. I listen to the shouts of the world and I worry. And I fall so far short of loving others the way You want me to.

Please help me. Teach me Your truth that I might fight back against the enemy’s lies. Help me hold Your promises in my heart that I might trust and follow Your will. Fill me with Your love that I might love others in ways that glorify You.

May it forever be my heart’s desire to love You and others as my loving response to all the grace, mercy, and LOVE you have given to me. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

It’s hard, isn’t it? It’s not in our human nature to love like Jesus. But with the Holy Spirit’s help, we can proclaim with John:

All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.

We love each other because He loved us first.
1 John 4:15–16, 19

May God’s love be the first thing people see in us and the last thing they remember about us.

On today’s note write:

LOVE is the Most Important Commandment!

Take a moment to read all of Matthew 22 here.

God be with you today and may He fill you until you overflow with His love.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

And a thank you to BibleGateway.com for sources.

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I’m a first-born rule follower. I like rules. I understand rules. Rules make sense.

If you do A and B happens and you definitely don’t do X if you want to prevent Y from happening.

It’s simple like math.

Rules are black and white.

And following the rules pleases people . . . especially parents, teachers, and people in authority.

Rule followers understand following the 10 Commandments. And most importantly they have to be careful they don’t fall in line with the Pharisees and obey God to earn whatever it is they believe He can give them.

It’s a little harder for those of us who like to follow the rules to understand the idea of surrendering to love because…

Love is less like math, less black and white.

Love seems gray. Because as imperfect people you and I have experienced imperfect love.

Let me explain –

Have you ever had your heart broken? Beth Moore asks it this way in Living Beyond Yourself, “Who didn’t love you? Who didn’t love you that was supposed to love you?”

If you’ve given your heart away to someone only to have it crushed; you understand the problem of surrendering to love. You see once you have trusted someone enough to love them if they hurt or betray you . . . your walls of defense go up. A self-preserving decision that says, “I don’t ever want to feel like that again.”

We’ve all been hurt by someone.

And that makes it almost impossible to grow up without some brick and mortar being added to our defensive walls. And that means going forward most of our love relationships will have an element of self-protection and lack of trust.

Too often you and I paint God with a “human” brush.

He asks us to surrender completely to His perfect love . . . we wonder, “Can I really trust His love, or is He just like all the others?”

Add in the world’s adversity and affliction . . . how often have you been asked, “If God is good and loving, why is there so much pain and suffering?”

And the old lie Satan has been whispering since the garden, telling us God is holding out on us and if He really loved us He’d want us to be happy.

It’s easy to see how you and I can become rule followers trying to earn a right relationship with God.

In many ways, rules just seem easier. They make sense. Obey the rules and avoid the consequences of pain and suffering. Obey the rules and reap the rewards.

It’s supposed to work, isn’t it?

Even if we don’t admit it . . . many of us hold on to a bit of that belief just in case. (Look at the doctrine of every other world religion that teaches a message of good works to earn paradise.)

There’s a huge problem with that message because we won’t obey the rules perfectly and no matter how hard we try to follow the rules there is no guarantee we’ll avoid pain and suffering. In fact, the opposite is true.

Jesus said, In this world, you will have trouble. John 16:33

And “trouble” sends us right back to the thought, “If God is good, how can He allow..?”

A loving God and a world in trouble can leave you and me with a “crisis of faith.”

What do you do when you have a faith crisis?

Jesus said we should ask, search, and knock.

“Ask, and God will give to you. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will open for you. Matthew 7:7

Stillness and God’s Love

Going to God in stillness—asking, searching, and knocking you will find in book after book and page after page. In Old Testament and New…

God’s love has never changed, never faltered.

“Yahweh! The LORD! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.” Exodus 34:6

O my Strength, to You I sing praises, for You, O God, are my refuge, the God who shows me unfailing love. Psalm 59:17

For the LORD is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and His faithfulness continues to each generation. Psalm 100:5

God loves first, last . . . always.

God is love.This is how God showed His love to us: He sent His one and only Son into the world so that we could have life through Him.This is what real love is: It is not our love for God; it is God’s love for us. He sent His Son to die in our place to take away our sins. 1 John 4:8–10

He will not love us less if we fail or more if we obey because love is who God is.

You and I don’t need a protective wall with Him. We can trust His perfect unfailing love completely.

And because we can trust Him we can surrender everything to Him.

Surrender to His Love

I used to focus on verses in the Bible that talked about love and obedience.

I show kindness to thousands who love me and obey my commands. Exodus 20:6

But I had it backwards.

Jesus, looking at the man, loved him and said, “There is one more thing you need to do. Go and sell everything you have, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me.” Mark 10:21

Jesus knew this man’s heart. He knew he would choose to walk away, but He loved him anyway. He loved him before he surrendered . . . before he followed.

I pray each day and ask God to help me surrender . . . not to the rules, but to His perfect love. That He would help me simply…

Be still and know . . . Him. Psalm 46:10

Because the more I know Him the more I want to surrender to Him.

I know following the rules seems easier. It makes sense. You and I want to earn that reward. But our loving Father doesn’t work that way. He loves us first and most and you and I can trust Him completely.

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