How is your giving? Love the Lord your God
Love the Lord your God… Love your Neighbor… Mark 12:28-31.
Which is the most important commandment? (Mk.12:28) A teacher of the law asked this question to Jesus. His answer:
- Love God.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Mk.12:30 Love the Lord your God
a. Love God with all your heart.
b. Love God with all your soul.
c. Love God with all your mind.
d. Love God with all your strength.
Total devotion is demanded. A person’s vertical relationship with God.
- Love your neighbor.
Love your neighbor as yourself.. Mk.12:31
“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself.” Leviticus 19:18.
We do everything for ourselves and for our family because we love ourselves. Are we able to love and care for others as we love ourselves?
We love our spouse and our children. This is evident from the time we spend with them, the love, care and protection we give to them and the money we spend for them. Can we say that, we love our neighbors? If you are not loving our neighbor, are we obeying the greatest commandment or disobeying it?
A person’s horizontal relationship with his neighbor. The strength of the vertical relationship should be seen in the strength of the horizontal relationship. Good relationship with God must follow good relationship with fellow human beings. If we are not able to love our neighbors, it shows that we are not loving God.
When a fire burns, it produces light and heat. No fire can burn only with light and without heat.
(Neighbor means a person in need. Please read the parable of the Good Samaritan. Luke 10:25-37)
Do we love the Lord our God, with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength? If so, how much of our time and money is given to God and for Godly matters?
Do we love our neighbor as ourselves? Do they know that?
What are some areas which needs improvement in our loving God and loving our neighbors?
LET US LOVE GOD AND OUR NEIGHBOR.
Rev. C.V. Abraham
How is your giving?
“Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury; for all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living” (Mk 12:43,44).
Is it not amazing to see the devotion of this godly widow? She was probably aware of what the priests were doing with most of the money. If she were an ordinary woman, she would have thought,” What is the use of giving all that I have to the temple, seeing the way money is misused?” [ They obviously wasted money on ornate stones and elaborate temple decorations – see Lk 21:5]
What do we learn from this widow’s offering? First of all, she believed she was giving to God, and not to man. The widow obviously also had the revelation that God wanted her very best. When God’s love, God’s pure love, fills our soul, giving sacrificially will be a delight rather than a law or demand. As our love for the Lord grows, we will be more and more willing to offer everything to Jesus in spite of all that is happening around us.
At the time when this poor widow offered all she had to God, Jesus had not yet died – to set her a perfect example. In view if this fact, how much more willing and delighted we should be to give to our Lord Who gave even His last drop of blood for us, sinners!
Dear child of God, have you ever withheld anything that should have been given to God, looking at the circumstances about you?
- Morning Manna
Stay Blessed 😊
Ravi