LOVE WITH EVERYTHING=THAT YOU HAVE GOT

 

LOVE WITH EVERYTHING=THAT YOU HAVE GOT

In the 12th chapter

Of Saint Mark's Gospel

ONE of the teachers

Of the law

Comes forward and asks Jesus

WHICH commandment is 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 this”                                                                                Mark 12:29-31

In other words

LOVE-with everything that you have got

GIVE everything that you have

To God and others

You come second

Give ALL that you have

To God and others

LOVE-with

EVERYTHING that you have

That is tantamount

To blasphemy-in this me first-

Selfish world that we live in

Jesus goes on to say,

“You are right,”                                                                             Mark 12:32

And, “you are NOT far from the 

KINGDOM OF GOD”                                                                 Mark 12 :34

To the scholar

After that-NO ONE DARED-

To ask Jesus any more questions

It makes me wonder

In what I sometimes think-

Is right

That the SECOND COMING of God-

and that the KINGDOM of God

Is within ourselves

The KINGDOM OF GOD

Is within you and within me

ONCE-on being asked

By the Pharisees 

WHEN the kingdom of God

Would come

Jesus replied,

“The coming

Of the KINGDOM OF GOD

Is NOT something

That can be observed

Nor will people say,

'Here it is,' or 'There it is'

Because the kingdom of God

Is in your midst”                                                                                 Luke 17:21-22

We may NEVER know

When the kingdom of God is ending

therefore-we should always-

LOVE GOD-and love ALL others

And put the first two commandments 

Into practice

At all times

LOVE with everything

That you have

As much as we

MAY want to

We-most of us-simply cannot love

Because we are commanded to

For MOST of us

It takes seasons of darkness-

as it did me-

And FINDING THE LIGHT

BEFORE we can love

At all times

In fact-once we love

With our whole heart

Our whole mind-

And all our soul

And love our neighbor

As ourselves

WE HAVE IT!

At that point-

We GIVE everything 

That we have to God

And others

IN LOVE

Robert P. Wallman

3-3-16 and 3-11-2022

INSPIRED by an article in LIVING FAITH MAGAZINE by Patricia Livingston