Greatest

Read Matthew 22:34-39.

The highest and most unselfish of the four loves is agape. This is the kind of love God has for us. The best way we can describe it in our language is self-sacrificing, no-strings-attached love. It is love that is expressed toward someone just because they are. You are not loved for what you have done or what you have achieved. You are loved because you are you. As the old saying goes, there is nothing you can do to make God love you more, and there is nothing you can do to make him love you less. He loves you because you are you. Agape is supremely seen in Jesus, the Son of God, giving his life for us on the cross.

Jesus even described agape this way: "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends" (John 15:13). On an earlier occasion, he was approached by an "expert in the law," a Supreme Court Justice, you might imagine. Mr. Expert had decided to test Jesus by asking him which law was the most important. Of all the commands God had given the Hebrew people, which one stood out above the rest? Was it, perhaps, Deuteronomy 22:11: "Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together"? Or could it be Leviticus 11:9, which declared what sort of fish you can eat? Or, maybe even, Exodus 23:19: "Don't boil a young goat in its mother's milk" (I'm covered; I've never done that)? Which is the most important?

Jesus didn't pick any specific decree or anything that details the sort of life one should live. The most important commandment is not about what we eat, or drink, or wear, or even how we should handle mold (Leviticus 13:47-59). It's much more expansive than that. It's none of those and all of those. Jesus said the most important command is agape. Toward God. Toward others. Toward the world. "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

We might even say not just the Law and the Prophets, but the fate of the world hangs on how well we live out this command of agape. If ever we've needed Jesus' word here, it's now.

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