Week 1 – Living out the Great Commandment
Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:29-31
John, who identified himself as the disciple that Jesus loved, wrote, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Knowing the love of God changes a person. There is a significant difference between merely hearing about God’s love—or defining it on our own terms—and truly coming to know it personally. Once a person knows the love of God for themselves, it transforms them. They cannot help but love him in return. And because every person bears his image, they cannot help but love others as well.
When asked, Jesus summed up the entire law with two commandments: Love God. Love people. Our call to live on mission—the Great Commission—is fueled by the Great Commandment. We are controlled and compelled by his love. Because the world needs Jesus, as his disciples, we seek to know Christ more deeply, to be rooted in the depth of his love, so that we can make him and his love known in every moment of our lives.
