I asked the question this past Sunday, “What would our church look like if we began to live according to the Great Commandment?” For those who are not familiar with that phrase, it refers to a time when the religious leaders were trying to test Jesus and trip him up. They asked him what the greatest commandment was and he said, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with our you strength.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “You shall love the Lord your God with all your everything!” (my paraphrase). What truly do our lives begin to look like if we are captured by this command? What would the Church truly look like if as a corporate body we are so captured by loving God with all of our everything? I asked this question as we begin as a church to examine who we are, why we are here and what God wants to do through Trinity Church. I start here because Jesus was addressing religious leaders who already had all the rules down and had “church” figured out, and were attempting to get the people to follow their religious traditions and ways to God. My thinking is that if Jesus goes to this command as the greatest and even says that all the Old Testament hangs on these two great commands, that maybe as the religious people of our day we need to make sure that we go back to the basics of what it is truly all about as we begin to restart a “church”, local congregation. So let me ask what would life look like if each one of us were to be captivated by such a love for our God? If we were to become aware of God’s continual presence and drawing of us to himself – not because he is looking for an opportunity to dump a whole truck of condemnation on us, but because he loves us and wants us to walk in an everyday, every moment, every breath kind of relationship with him – would we begin to live our lives for him? Loving him with every breath, every attitude, every thought, every action, every decision, with all of our everything? How would that impact our world, our nation, our city, our homes, our work places, our personal lives, even our local churches? You shall love the Lord your God with all your EVERYTHING! How are we doing with that? |
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