Ridgell's Originals

 The greatest command is to love the Lord your God with everything you are.

The second greatest command is to love your neighbor as yourself.

I grew up in a church enviornment where there was a lot of emphasis on what God said and the best/correct/right way to worship Him.  And how to live to please Him.  What to do.  Lots of emphasis on what not to do.  I was sort of assumed you loved God, so the issue was how to live that out.

Looking back, I wish there had been a lot more of the why we live the way we do.  More talk about loving God being the most important thing.  It was easy to lose the why in the what.  Then if not careful, a subtle shift to making the right action and doctrine the center of our focus.

Didn't hear as much about the second command.  To be clear, I sure saw it in practice.  Especially in the home I grew up in.  Helping people,  Treating people like Jesus.  Going the second mile.  Not much about the why, but a whole lot of it in practice.

Now I hear a lot about the second command.  And I hear a lot about what that means in politics.  What it means in a pandemic.  Even how it should inform our theology.  Almost as if it is the greatest command.  I still see the second command practiced a lot by Christians.  

I don't hear as much about loving God.  Again, I think it is there in practice.  Just not hearing it much as the foundation of our faith.  Very abstract.  If not careful, really easy to slip into thinking that the most important thing in our lives is to love people.  Assuming that if you love people, you will surely love God.

Sometimes people even struggle with which one to obey if they come into conflict.  I hear people say "if I have to choose, I will always choose loving people."  Usually, this is in the context of a debate on doctrine.  

If a doctrine appears to be unloving, or if people tell me it is unloving, then choose people over doctrine.

Here is the problem with this discussion.  If you are debating whether God means what He says, it is not doctrine but truth you are deciding whether or not to choose.  And I absolutely do not believe God would ever have His truth about life be unloving to any of His creation.  So if I percieve a conflict, I am not understanding what God said.  Or I do not understand what love really is.  Or I do not know people.

Because God is love.  So if someone tries to put loving God and thus believing what He says in conflict with what it means to love someone...

The choose loving God.  He is not wrong.  He is love.    

But I don't think you have to choose.

It is more a matter of conviction and courage than it is of choice.

So love God with all you have no matter what.

Then love the people around you in the same way you love yourself.  In the way God loves you.  In the way God loves them.

But keep the greatest thing the greatest thing.

# posted by Steve @ 5:00 AM