Wesley United Methodist Church, Orange TX

I was just thinking about the Twelve Commandments or is it maybe thirteen. You do remember Jesus telling us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbor as ourselves? Of course those would be eleven and twelve but where is thirteen? Well let’s look in John 15:12 where Jesus tells us “This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you!” You may be thinking that they all say we should love each other and that loving God and loving our neighbor are actually a part of the original Ten. I would say that Jesus made sure that we knew the original Ten were essential and if we were not following His love commandments we would not be using the glue that holds them all together. Remember from Mark:

Mar 12:29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, Mar 12:30 and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ Mar 12:31 The second is this: ‘You must love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”

So love would be essential to all that we do and who we are as Christians and is punctuated in John 15:12 with “love one another as I have loved you.” He is telling His disciples that love is what will hold His Church together. Can you see now how important love is to our Christian beliefs? Can you also see how divided the Christian church is? Do you think that love is left out of the equation in the differences we have in our denominations and the teachings that divide us? Yes, I think there is much hatred and bigotry “exclusiveness” in some “Christian” churches today because they pick and choose scripture that suits their own priorities. They then make those scripture primary over the “thirteen commandments.”

Jesus tells us that if love is not in the equation then it is not of Him. Jesus was very wise in His teachings and I sometimes wonder why Christian churches don’t listen to Him. Love your neighbor as yourself! That means you cannot pick and choose by color of skin, ethnicity, language spoken, denomination, immersion or sprinkling or affluency. Just love your neighbor!

Pastor Randy