The Greatest Commandment

SERMON # 1114-CHURCH IN THE HOUSES DATE: MARCH 8, 2020

TOPIC: "The Greatest Commandment" Matthew 22:37, 38 How is it that we love God? Are we loving God correctly? Let us know that we cannot love the Lord in the way that we please, or as many like to say: "I love God and serve him in my own way." No, that is not the way to love the Lord! There is a correct way to love him and it is the one that Jesus himself teaches us! If we really love him, we will show him with our own lives. Well, when we love Him, we look for the things that please Him! "Jesus replied: Love the Lord God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." This is the way we should love the God who created us and who has offered us reconciliation through his son Jesus, to save us from sin and give us eternal life!

I. (Vs. 37) God will be loved with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind.

A. It is loving God WITH OUR BEING TOTALLY!

1. Jesus says it, He has placed an "and" between the words heart, soul, mind. That means that loving him has to be with all these three aspects at the same time! Jesus shows that all these traits of our personality: heart, soul and mind are combined, that they come together and balance to love God as we should.

2. IT IS TO CONNECT THE MIND, THE HEART AND THE SOUL TO DO EVERYTHING THAT WILL MAKE GOD HAPPY! From there, that it be THE FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT COMMANDMENT for believers!

3. To love God is an attitude that implies WILL, which is the human capacity to decide freely what is desired and what is not. That implies REFLECTION, which is the thought of something with great attention and detail to understand it well. And it implies COMMITMENT, which is the obligation contracted or assumed to fulfill something.

4. That is, we must PROJECT, LET THE LOVE FOR OUR GOD BE SEEN, through our spirit and our daily actions with will, reflection and commitment.

5. In a masterful way, the Lord Jesus recapitulated in a brief and orderly summary, man's obligation to God, to love Him as the first and great commandment.

6. Jesus said: “You shall love THE LORD YOUR GOD with all your HEART…” The heart is the muscle that pumps blood rich in oxygen and nutrients to the tissues of the body through the blood vessels. The heart keeps the blood moving in the body in a unidirectional way, it is a closed circuit in which nothing is lost. Then it is the veins that carry the blood back to the heart. The heart is like a bag made up of muscles and with blood vessels going in and out of it. The function of the heart is to pump blood TO ALL CORNERS OF THE ORGANISM. Blood is oxygenated as it passes through the lungs and circulates through the heart to be propelled to all parts of the body. IN THE SAME WAY YOUR HEART WILL BE IN CHARGE OF CARRYING YOUR LOVE FOR GOD THROUGHOUT YOUR NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL SYSTEM!

7. "...and with all your SOUL..." The soul is considered the principle that gives life. The function of the soul is to give life to the body. And the function of the spirit, which is where God dwells, is to give spiritual life to the soul. In most people the spirit is not active, only the soul and the body act. So, if we convert, now, we have God in our lives and the spirit is active and in communion with the Holy Spirit, so that we are spiritual and we stop being carnal.

8. "...and with all your MIND." The mind is the set of the intellectual capacities of the person such as the perception, thought, conscience and memory. It is the part of the human being where these processes develop. The mind is also synonymous of the purposes, intention, thought and will. We should love God with all our thought and intellect.

9. In Mark 12:30 we see that a phrase is added to the verse of Matthew: "...and with all your strength." Strength is inherent in our physical nature. Strength is the power of each one. Strength is responsible for PRODUCING, FOR DOING THINGS. The love of God has to be with all our strength, doing whatever it takes to love him with a sincere, strong and constant love.

10. So, from all of the above, we see the first obligation of man: which is to love God with the totality of our being! It is not loving him lightly, nor in our own way, nor comparing him to any other love. God is loved with a unique love; he is loved with all that we are and with all that we have. Amen.