On The Tip of Your Tongue? First and Great Commandment

On the Tip of Your Tongue?

The great and first commandment

Matthew 22.37, 38

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”

Acts 8.4

Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.

What you love, you talk about with others.

Persecution could not keep those first believers from talking about Jesus. Forced out of their homes and driven off to unfamiliar places, they had a common conversation with everyone they met: “Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ?” Conversation can be hard work, except when we’re excited or talking about something – or someone – we really love. Then the words seem to come more easily. We get excited. Our faces light up. We become very animated talking about that person we love so much. This is what made the first believers such effective witnesses. Head over heels in love with Jesus, they didn’t care that they’d lost everything for Him. It seems only to have made them love Him more, because they just kept talking about Him everywhere they went. That’s what people do who are in love.

With whom will you have an opportunity to talk about Jesus today?

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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.