Written and delivered at the weekly staff meeting for Faith In Practice.

Having worked at Faith In Practice for nearly 11 months now, I have noticed that one of our favorite scriptures is Matthew 22:39, which gives us God’s commandment to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. “Loving your neighbor” is a commonly-quoted scripture that most will recognize and agree with in theory, regardless of whether they believe in God or not. It is interesting that even though this commandment is the more popular one, “loving your neighbor” is actually denoted by Jesus as the second of the greatest commandments.

The first and greatest commandment? According to Jesus, it is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all of your soul and with all your mind.” To me, this commandment feels infinitely more intimidating and hard to accomplish. It seems much easier to love those around us, people who are tangible and have needs that we can help with. When so much of our daily strength goes into getting things done and taking care of those around us, how can we still have any energy left, to give God the love and worship that He asks for?

This answer is Jesus. We look at Jesus, the son of God who entered our world as the baby of a lower-class nobody family. Jesus, who walked and served the masses in sandals, to the point of exhaustion. Jesus, the sinless and perfect, who was wronged by those closest to him yet quietly persevered in taking on the punishment for our sins, even as he was mocked by the weak and cruel.

When we turn our eyes to Christ, and we experience a love that both stuns and gives life. God allowed his only and beloved son to be pierced for transgressions that he did not commit, so that we could escape the chains of sin that have held humans in bondage for centuries. And when our hearts consider this amazing love that God gives us, how else can we respond but in total worship?

So today, let us be reminded that the point of Christianity lies in not the moral ”ought to’s” and “need to’s ,”  but God himself, who has demonstrated a perfect love and continues to do so to this day. Self-determination and pep-talks can take us pretty far, but our capacity to outpour abundant amounts of selfless love only possible when we live inspired by God’s love and filled with His transcendent peace.

So cling onto those “Wow, God” moments and you will find a small but powerful way to abide in God’s love.  For those of us who choose to follow Christ as our Lord and Savior, trying to do life with any other method would be exhausting. Only by abiding in His love, will we know how sweet it is, to walk in the freedom of obeying and surrendering our lives to a Heavenly Father whose love is ever-present and always good.