Conversations

Today has been a day full of amazing conversations with people I have not chatted with in many moons. It was so great to catch up with a few people and see what is going on in their lives!

I think we all too often forget to look at the amazing people God has put into our lives. So often we focus on such a select group of friends or just one person (like a significant other). Yet there's this whole world filled with other people that are just waiting for us to love on them. This verse has been placed on my heart a lot today and I thought I would share it with you.

"One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, 'Of all the commandments, which is the most important?'
'The most important one,' answered Jesus, 'is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these.'
'Well said, teacher,' the man replied. 'You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.'
When Jesus say that he had answered wisely, he said to him, 'You are not far from the kingdom of God.' And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions."
-Mark 12:28-34

This man, a teacher of the law, was honestly supposed to be one of those who opposed Jesus. They tried to trip Him up all the time and many taught against Jesus being the Christ that they were waiting for. Yet this teacher of the law, a teacher who thus highly regarded burnt offerings and sacrifices and taught his students to follow the law point by point admitted that these two commandments were more important than the tradition he was teaching. This teacher of the law was in love with God's heart, not with God's arm and the good things He gave man to do in the law.

It also raises another point: God's love knows no bounds. This teacher of the law could have reacted like he should have: completely appalled that Jesus didn't even mention anything about the laws and commandments that they had set up so rigidly. Yet the fact that God was talking about love and loving God and others above everything else was their meeting point. Even when He met resistance from the church in many other places, this love that He was speaking about could not be argued and rejected.

It's interesting because we see this again in John 3, where our beloved "Gospel in a Nutshell" verse comes from (yes, I am talking about John 3:16!). "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall never perish but have eternal life." Believe it or not, this was said to a man named Nicodemus, who the Bible says "was a man of the Pharisees" and that he was "a member of the Jewish ruling council," (John 3:1). Just another time that God's love breaks down barriers even with people whose hearts are the hardest.

Jesus loved even those who opposed Him. Jesus loved those who tried to trip Him up with asking him all the tough questions. Jesus loved those who did not love him back. Jesus loved those who taught about God but not about Him. Jesus loved those who knew the scriptures and rejected Him anyway. Jesus loved those who were hardest to love.

And we're supposed to have the same attitude of Christ (Philippians 2:5)- isn't loving those who are hardest to love part of it?

Love hard those hard to love.