Look To Jesus – The Second Great Commandment

Look to Jesus

The Second Great Commandment

Matthew 22.38, 39

“This is the great and the first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

John 13.15

“For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.”

Jesus is the Way of love.

The Law of God is summarized in two great commandments. The first requires that we love the Lord our God with all our soul and strength. God Himself shows us how to fulfill this requirement, as we saw last week. The second great commandment leads us to love our neighbors as ourselves. But we must be careful here lest we think that love is something which originates with us, as though we were able to define the terms of love according to our own understanding or practice. We are quite adept at loving ourselves; self-love unrestrained by love for God is of the essence of the law of sin. Loving our neighbors often boils down to feeling OK about them, not wishing them ill, or avoiding any deliberate or overt actions which might harm them. Those may well be ingredients of neighbor-love, but we will never learn to love our neighbors as God intends until we look to Him and let Him show us how. Jesus is the best and most readily-available example of love in action, and His ministry to His disciples on the night of His betrayal shows us the essence of neighbor love. As we look more carefully at Jesus’ washing His disciples’ feet, we will understand better what love requires of us.

Who are your neighbors? That is, whom do you anticipate seeing this week who is legitimately entitled to your neighbor-love?

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“In the Gates” is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001,2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.