The Greatest Commandment

The Greatest Commandment
When Jesus was asked , Which is the greatest commandment in the law?” He answered, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
From the words Jesus spoke we see that we must first love God with our whole being, body soul and spirit. Then we are to love ourselves. We need to love ourselves for what we are: children of God, made in God’s image, with all the attractive and unattractive human qualities we possess. The degree to which we are able to love ourselves determines how much we can love our neighbor.
When we start looking for spiritual enlightenment our humanity seems to get in the way. This hinders our commitment not only to ourselves but also to God. What will people think if I am spiritual? What will God think if your are not?
However spiritual we are, and however dedicated we are to serving God most of us will still encounter trying, human situations. Many times we seek guidance in the places we feel are closest to God. That may be a church, for God surely is in church, or it may be on a mountaintop nothing could be closer to God than that. While both of these locations can serve as a vehicle to help us reach out to God there is still a better way to commune with God. If we will but open our hearts and minds and spirits to God and His will He will dwell with us. If we don’t love our neighbor as we love ourselves how then can we truly love God? Or maybe we do love our neighbor as we love ourselves. If we go to church on Sunday and sing Oh How I Love Jesus then use his name in vane on Monday who do we love?
The bible says, “What so ever a man thinketh in his heart so is he.”
Man is a three part being. We are body soul and spirit. We choose to live in any one of these areas. The body is carnal and only wants material things; the soul and spirit want to be in Gods presence. Most of us only live in the carnal state. God wants us to live and abide with Him in all three states.
Learn to love yourself, love God then you can love your neighbor.