Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
Before we move on from Mark 12:28-34, let us return to the key concept: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God” (verse 30a). In simple terms, to love God is to love the things that He loves. For example, we must love His way of salvation – the only way: “Jesus saith unto him [Thomas], ‘I am the Way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me’” (John 14:6). We are to love others because God loves them (and us): “But God commendeth [demonstrates] His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8); this supreme act of love occurred “when we were enemies” of God (Romans 5:10a). The parallel passage in Matthew adds the following to Jesus’ answer to the scribe: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (22:40). In other words, we cannot truly keep any commandment of God unless we first love Him and then love others. His giving love becomes the motivation for what we do – really, for who we are. I think of the words of a hymn: “Breathe on me, Breath of God, fill me with life anew, that I may love what Thou dost love and do what Thou wouldst do.” May it be.