Not too long ago I was doing my Bible reading and going through the book of Romans when a particular passage jumped out and halted my progress. “Love worketh no ill to his neighbour:
therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”
Romans 13:10 (KJV) I’ve passed by this verse many times over, seen it numerous times. It’s a rather popular verse after all, obviously not a new concept, but on this day it grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let go. In chapter 22 of Matthew, Jesus said the greatest commandment was to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy mind.” He then goes on to say that the second most important commandment follows the first: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” But why love? Why not doing good deeds? Serving selflessly? Or maybe worship? There are hundreds of other important things. What makes love triumph over everything else? When I saw that passage in Romans, it hit me. “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Love LEADS to everything else. What compels us to good deeds? Love. What causes us to serve others? Love. We choose to worship and serve and live our lives for our God because we LOVE Him. If not for love, what would drive us to live for anyone but ourselves? I think that’s what Jesus was saying when He told us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Because, really, if we had our will our lives would be centered totally and completely on US. It’s such an easy trap to serve self. To ignore life and responsibilities in exchange for an entire day on the couch marathoning your favorite TV show. (*guilty*) But we are not meant to live our lives selfishly, to spend day after day thinking about me, me, me. “Love thy neighbour.” If we put as much effort into serving others as we do ourselves, what a beautiful world that would be. “Love worketh no ill to his neighbour.” When we love someone, really truly love them, we never want to cause them harm. We desire to lift them up, to help them, make them smile. What if we spent day after day loving our God with all our heart, soul, and mind? To put our all in all in Him? If we pour our hearts into loving our Lord and Savior then all those other things will fall into place. Love guides us to our God, drives us to live selflessly, to serve others, to worship Him. Love is the greatest commandment because it leads us to obey all other commandment. Without love we’d be nothing but empty, selfish, meaningless shells. After all, it was love that put Jesus on the Cross and paved the way into His waiting, open arms. All we have to do is LOVE. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13 (NKJV)
This is brilliant. I have no other words. Such a beautiful reminder! Thanks for sharing, m'dear.
Oh my, thank you! I'm so glad you enjoyed it. Been praying for you, sweet girl. *hugs*
This was so inspiring to read! I think it's easy to forget that, even if we're doing things that are meant to show we love others, if we don't actually have that love in our hearts, we're just going through the motions, even if our intentions are good.
This is such a thought-provoking and thoughtful post. I really enjoyed it!
I'm thrilled to hear it was inspiring! Of course it's not a new concept, but the realization just really hit me and I felt led to share.
That is so true. Absolutely LOVED the way you put it! Beautiful.
Thank you so much! <3
Beautiful post, Christine — Amen to that!
Thank you! I'm so very glad you enjoyed it. ^_^
Awesome thoughts!! Thanks for sharing . . . simply beautiful! (And challenging!) 🙂
Blessings!!
Thank you! You are so welcome! It's definitely a challenging thought. Isn't it such an amazing realization seeing how endless His grace and patience is with us as we mess up and try again and again? He is sovereign!
Mm. SUCH a good post, Christine. This echoes my own thoughts, bringing them back to the surface as a timely reminder. Such a simple truth, yet so profound.
And isn't it interesting that these two greatest commandments deal with the heart? All the Old Testament laws were concerned with outward behavior, but in the New Testament, it's the heart that matters most. Proverbs 4:23 talks about the heart being the wellspring of life–everything we do (and are!) flows from it.
Don't you just love it when you rediscover familiar passages? <3 Thanks again for such an inspiring post!
Oh, thank you so much! That's so true. I know this is probably a duh thing to most, but one day it just really HIT me, you know? It kind of puts me in awe to think how love really does guide us to all other things.
Oh wow! You know, I've never even THOUGHT about that, the difference between the Old and New Testament laws. You're right. What a fascinating discovery! Yes, a wonderful verse! While writing this it brought to the forefront of my mind how much the Bible talks about love. It was hard choosing only a few verses! I really just wanted to quote the whole of 1 Corinthians 13. Such a beautiful chapter on love.
I do! It's funny how we can see a verse over and over again but then one day it's like it's fresh and new. God is amazing! <3
What a beautiful, true, wonderful reminder of a post! ^_^ Thanks Lauri! It's so hard to put into effect because of what selfish souls we are (or… maybe that's just me), but it's good to be reminded of it and THINK about it and try to work toward it with God's help. 🙂 Have you read "The Greatest Thing in the World" by Henry Drummond? It's a little booklet/essay and talks a lot about what you have to say here, and I find it beautiful and inspiring. I love how you come to the same conclusion in this post! ^_^
D'awww! Thank you!!
It is so very, very hard! Oh gracious, if anyone's selfish around here it's me. I disgust myself with the amount of selfishness I practice every day, it's horrid! God has to nudge me quite often and remind me to stop living for self.
No, I don't think I've ever even heard of that book. That's awesome it covers the same thing, I need to check it out! Thank you for the recommendation!
*sings* I taaaaagged you. ^_^ No obligations, but here is your warning. 😉 https://deborahocarroll.wordpress.com/2015/06/26/the-bookshelf-tag/ KEEP WRITING DEARY! YOU CAN DO THIS!!!
EEEEEEEE!!!!!!! THIS TAG IS SO AMAZING AND I AM TOTALLY DOING IT. Thank you so muuuuch! <3333