By GFI board member, Mark Woita
THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS:
I’m a simple guy. With a simple mind. While I love the Bible, theology, history, and prophecy, sometimes I run into information overload. Or activity overload. I become a “Martha” while not paying enough attention to being a “Mary”. In Luke 10:38-42, the Bible states that Martha had been busy running around serving people, “being distracted with all her preparations”, and was taking umbrage of Mary who was not helping, but sitting at the feet of Jesus listening and learning. Jesus said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; but only one thing is necessary; for Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Fortunately, Jesus gave us some guidelines to assist us in simplifying our thinking and our focus. In Matthew 22:35-40, a Pharisee lawyer asked Jesus, “’Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’ And He said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’. On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
Loving God is the greatest commandment, and has priority over loving people.
Loving God first enables us to love and serve people from a pure heart.
THE GREAT COMMISSION:
Then also, in His parting words to His disciples before ascending into heaven, Jesus exhorted them to, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even the end of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20 (underlines mine for emphasis)
So, for the sake of simplicity, I think of the Christian life as:
The Great Commandments:
1. Love God
2. Love people
And the Great Commission:
1. Go make disciples
If you and I “major on the majors”, by focusing our minds on the above, it can yield us pleasing to our Lord, and profitable to His kingdom. May it be so.