"Hear O Israel ..."
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According to the Lord Jesus Christ, there are two commandments which sum up all the commandments ...
"The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these." Mark 12:29-30 [Also found in Matthew 22:37-40 and Luke 10:25-37]
I've prayed this many times that I (and the Church) will love the Lord our God first, with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. And God convicts me right now, that I don't pray enough that I will love my neighbor as much as I love myself. These two commandments walk hand in hand. Many times it's easy to let other things get in the way of our First Love (Revelation 2:4), God Almighty in Christ Jesus. Probably one of the saddest things I have seen is people who actually abandon the love of God for religion. Our most solid example of this was the pharisees of Jesus' day. God manifested Himself in the form of Jesus the Christ, and the pharisees were so wrapped up in their religious regulations that they couldn't even see Him. Folks, it happens today. If we can maste these two simple commandments, we've got the plan of God in a nutshell.
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