Love God. Love People.

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 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.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."-(Matthew 22:36-40)

Love God. Love People. It IS really that simple. Jesus could very well have delivered a diatribe that unraveled the very mystery of faith and the engineering schematics for creation and God's plans, but He chose instead to encapsulate the heart of the Father with what is essentially the meaning of life. So poignant is this ideal, and so very much like the wonderfully simple ideal of grace, it is almost incomprehensible to our feeble, legalistic minds. We want so desperately to add to it, because "it cannot be that simple..." But the Lord Himself revealed the key to pleasing God and fulfilling your destiny here on Earth. Love Him with ALL of yourself, leaving no part insulated from Him, and love others as you love yourself.

Loving God comes easily for me. I have been forgiven of so much that is, in the natural, and in my own understanding, unforgiveable. But the Holy Spirit revealed to me long ago that I was very similar to the woman with the alabaster box at Simon the Pharisee's house. She was a terrible sinner, particularly in the eyes of the law, but the presence of the Lord, and the Master's forgiveness led her to give all of her love to Him "Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."-(Luke 7:47) Love for the Lord leads us into His covering. The very presence of the Holy Spirit IS LOVE. When you bask in His shadow, you are encompassed by the purest love in all creation. We love God because He first loved us. Even while we were ignorantly hurting, cursing, defiling and avoiding Him. He still loved us so much that He gave everything. How could we NOT love Him?

Loving our neighbors as we love ourselves is not immediately easy for most of us. I imagine that the enemy would like to keep us divided and reclusive due to the revelation of the power that unity creates. It would seem, at first glance, that loving others is an issue based entirely around the behavior, reciprocal treatment and the "lovability" of others. My Spirit-Man knows otherwise. We are so often used by the enemy to believe that it is "their fault" or "them" that has the issues that block our love. But I would pose this query to you: What if you do not truly love yourself? How is it possible to love others as we love ourselves, when we truthfully do not? Loving ourselves oftentimes DOES NOT come easily. When we receive the transformative power of salvation, we immediately cling to the Love of God, but it takes many of us a lengthy period of time to be delivered from the lies the adversary tells us about ourselves. Sometimes, it takes an entire lifetime. Sometimes, sadly, it never happens. I know dozens of "saved, blood-bought believers" who are absolutely loveless because they are constantly crippled by the whispers of inadequacy and inferiority from the enemy. I was one of those people. I listened to the lies. Even knowing the Word of God, I believed the fallacies that once plagued my quiet hours. "You are no good. You do not deserve any of this... No one loves you, they are all against you." But God got a hold of me one day long ago and revealed that without Him those statements were true. But WITH HIM, I was forgiven, delivered, renewed, recreated and most importantly LOVED. How do we love ourselves and others? We receive God's Love for us, and He LOVES THROUGH US.

We can do nothing without LOVE. God IS LOVE, and we can do nothing without GOD. Your gifts, talents and earthly tools will never give you entry into the Kingdom of God. Your best laid efforts to enter eterntity based on what you consider as service to the King will be crushed and unrecognized if you do not follow these commandments. The Apostle Paul said it flawlessly: "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."-(1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

We are all in "full-time ministry". We are all required by God to minister to one another. Do not leave that up to the oracle ministries. Jesus tells us that the entirety of the Law and the Prophets hang upon loving God and loving people. He FULFILLED the Law and the Prophets and then gave one NEW COMMANDMENT reiterating the importance of our LOVE: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."-(John 13:34-35)

So the next time you find it challenging to LOVE someone who by the world's standard is unlovable, (perhaps even yourself) think on the Words of the Master. LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS HE LOVED US. LOVE GOD. LOVE PEOPLE.