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Jesus said the most important thing we must do is love God and the second most important is we must love others. (Mark 12:28-31; Matthew 22:35-40; Luke 10:25-28).  So, the most important thing we must do is love.

Jesus said we must love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  Loving God is something we do in prayer.  It’s very much like loving another person.  We like to spend time in conversation with a person that we love and, sometimes, just being with that person is good enough.  Loving God means spending time with him.  (I talk more about this in the article “Loving God”, link below.)

Jesus said we must love others the same way we love ourselves (Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27), and we must treat others the way we like others to treat us. (Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31).

Most of Jesus’ commands to his followers are practical teachings about how we should treat others.  (The article “What does Jesus want his followers to do?” contains a full list of Jesus’ commands.  Link below.)  Jesus tells us to be merciful to others.  We must not judge others or condemn others.  We must forgive others.  We must love even our enemies and do good to those who hate us.  We must bless those who curse us and pray for those who treat us badly.

This was revolutionary teaching in Jesus’ time, and it is revolutionary today.  We live in societies where, unfortunately, it is normal to judge, condemn and ridicule others.  So we, who follow the teachings of Jesus, stand out because we do not do those things.  We stand out because we love.

“By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35)

Unfortunately, our leaders often judge, condemn, and ridicule others.  They often judge, condemn and ridicule anyone who questions or challenges their point of view.  We must not follow the examples set by such people.

We follow the teachings of Jesus.  We must love.

May our loving Father bless us and strengthen us as we increasingly learn to love him, and love each other.

Jesus is Lord.

Peter O

 

Related articles

“What did Jesus say about loving God?”

“Loving God – the Good Parent” 

“What does Jesus want his followers to do?”

“What did Jesus say about loving others?”

“What did Jesus say about forgiving others?”

“What did Jesus say about judging or condemning others?”

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