I can remember a conversation with a man who described his family as a family who liked Jesus but did not love Jesus. I was shocked when I first heard it, but then I thought that was such an accurate assessment of so many people.

Do we truly love Jesus? When a person loves Jesus with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, they will never place anything above Him. They will honor Him in all of their decisions.

Likewise, if you love your neighbor as yourself, you will do the same. When you love your neighbor as yourself, you’ll never do anything to hurt him intentionally.

This all sounds good, but the problem is that it is much easier to make loving God and loving each other just another item to check off our to do list, than it is to be serious about the command.

This Sunday we will be looking at one of my favorite passages in the Bible. It’s in Matthew 22:34-40 where Jesus is asked a question, "Which is the great commandment in the law?" Jesus answered by saying: “Love God and love your neighbor." He then states that all the law hangs on these two commandments. This means that love for God and love for our neighbor is the foundation of all moral responsibility.

It is the Great Commandment.

Jesus is reminding us that we are to love God the same way He loves us. We must not respond to God’s wholehearted love in a halfhearted manner.

I think Jesus is also telling us that until you love God as you should, you will never love others as you could.

And because we do not love God as we should, the church has become more secular, less compassionate, and caring. The same is true of our society. It too has become less compassionate and caring. In fact, I would say that even in relationships, people have become less kind and caring.

Bill Bennett, when describing the seriousness of our cultural problem, was asked, "What is the answer? Police, money, national guard – laws revised?" Our country's moral dilemma is more profound than most people think. The reality is that it is a spiritual crisis, and at the root of it all, it is a core value crisis. A crisis of the soul. What he was saying is the ills of our society are a consequence when we take God’s love and compassion out of the equation. He is saying that expressions of compassion have a powerful effect on the lives of human beings.

When someone expresses to us a deep level of love, compassion, and care – something happens deep in our hearts.

Moods are melted, attitudes are softened, hearts get warmed

and lives get changed.

This Sunday, we will dig deeper into these verses and see what they have to say to us today. And as always feel free to join us for prayer at 9:00