Deuteronomy 30:9-14; Psalm 25; Colossians 1:1-14; Luke 10:25-37
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." Luke 10:27
Well here it is for all of us in one simple sentence ... a lawyer seeking eternal life is challenged by Jesus as to "what is written in the law" and answers his own question in a combination of guidance from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. No I'm not providing links ... go drag out your bible and read this for yourself ... and leave your bible out where it is handy ... in fact get a couple and leave one in every room.
Jesus then responds "You have given the right answer; do this and you will live." and somehow I can't help but hear these words spoken in the same manner as those of the old knight hidden in the cave within the valley of the crescent moon who tells Indiana Jones "You have chosen wisely" after Jones selects the grail correctly in the movie Last Crusade.
In Matthew 22:37-40 and Mark 12:29-31 Jesus himself sums up what John Wesley called the "essence of Christian Perfection" with similar words.
Simple right ... just "do this and you will live". Well, the lawyer wasn't so sure. Apparently he felt he had no problem with loving God and needed no advice in that but he wanted clarification on who exactly were his neighbors. Interesting that he should ask as Leviticus is fairly clear that his neighbors are his fellow Jews .... you spotted this yourself when you looked it up I'll bet ... anyway, he had to have been shocked by Jesus' answer which we read in the bible passage we know of as the parable of the good Samaritan. Think how shocked you or others would be to hear that the neighbor to be loved as oneself was Dick Cheney, Cindy Sheehan or maybe Seung-Hui Cho. Hmmmmm ..... I'm thinking "do this and you will live" might be more complex than just having $30 a month charged to your mastercard by World Vision to sponsor a child in Ghana or tossing a couple of cans in a bag for the local food drive ... now don't stop doing this but ...
So then maybe this "love the Lord your God with all your heart" isn't so simple either. Yikes ... I'm starting to think we haven't got a prayer for inheriting eternal life. Hmmmmm ... prayer? Maybe there is a way after all.
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