Matthew 22:36-40 “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.”
Jesus was asked an important question in this passage. He was given the opportunity to lay it on the line and tell the world what He was really about. He was challenged to dissect the law and reveal the heart of God, and what did he come up with?
Relationships.
He speaks first of the relationship between men and God saying “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” adding that this was the greatest commandment. But then, in his next breath, he launches into the importance of loving your neighbor.
God expects us to maintain and develop relationships both vertically with Him and horizontally with one another.
Ephesians 4:25 says “Therefore, put away lying, let each of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.” Romans 12: 4-5 takes it a step further by saying “Just as each one of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function; so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
Did you know that we are not only supposed to like one another, to be nice to one another, or to appreciate one another….we literally belong to one another in that we are all members of the same body (the body of Christ).
I’m a finger. I’m a pretty good finger. I can scratch things, point things out fairly effectively, and press down when I need to. The problem is, if I ever needed to grab a sword, I would need the help of the palm, the thumb, the wrist, the other fingers, etc. You get the point. Think about that the next time you walk into the church and sit down in a pew. You’re a finger, and the person who is the thumb that can help you grab a hold of your destiny in Christ might be sitting two rows behind you.
I believe that there are ministry teams within our church that are yet to be activated because we haven’t really pressed into one another as well as we could have. Look at the young church in Acts some time and see what they did on a daily basis. They prayed, the worshiped, they listened to the teaching of the Apostles, and they sat down to chow together, they shared their earthly possessions, they became totally devoted to one another… and then they launched out teams that performed miracles and received prophecies and changed the face of the world.
Even the Apostle Paul, responsible for much of the New Testament that we read, ministered with partners: first it was Barnabas and Saul, then it was Barnabas and Paul, and then it was Paul and Barnabas…..you can see how God actually used and promoted Paul under the care and discipleship of Barnabas. God used that relationship in a powerful way.
I worry that so much of our ability to relate to and communicate with one another has diminished proportionately to the advancing ease with which we utilize technology. You see it in business: people would rather shoot a quick email than walk across the hall and have physical contact with their neighbor. We simply can’t allow it to happen in our churches. We must press through the formality and religious tradition and learn to embrace one another emotionally and spiritually. We need more face time, both with God and with one another. We need to invest time in one another by breaking bread and fellowshipping.
I’m all ears….let’s throw around some ideas on how we can grow the spiritual connections that we have with one another in the church. I say we grab some tents and spend a weekend on the property around a camp fire just getting to know each other….what do you think?
