For my Devotional reading tonight, one of the Bible passages supporting the day’s subject was Matthew 22:37-39:
Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ‘ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself ‘
Long ago, I was confused about this passage b/c I thought that with Jesus we as God’s children transitioned from the old covenant to a new. But after a lot of study and exposure to some very powerful and thought-provoking teaching, I was reminded that God is the same yesterday, today and forever – so His expectations/commands of us must also be just as consistent; and in support of that, I was also enlightened to the fact that Jesus’ mention of these “new” commandments was a reiteration of the original ten, just wrapped up in a “microwaveable container” (read, more briefly stated). After all, the underlying focuses of the original Ten Commandments were about loving God above all and putting Him first in our hearts and priority, and also loving our neighbors through our treatment, handling and consideration of them (Exodus 20:1). At that realization, mind. blown. 😄
Such an amazing example of how incredibly deep and multi-layered God’s word is.