Matthew 22:36-39
36 “Teacher,
which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied:
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And
the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
This is an oft repeated passage for any a sermon. I hope I
will be able to share a different view point of the same. Loving the Lord your
God I am sure needs know explanation. Let me focus on the second part.
Many a time we wonder what it is to love another as
yourself. As human beings we are all basically selfish. That is by nature to
us. It is always me first and then the other. This is applicable to one and
all.
Why do many a marriage fail is also because the selfish
nature is given so much precedence over the other person in our life that the
marriage fails.
Looking more closely at this verse this is what I
understand.
We need to love another as ourself. It is simply saying
ACCEPT the other person. Each of us is born unique. We have our own individual
traits some good some bad. The bad traits which others see in us we don’t
accept. However if we learn to ACCEPT the other person as they are with
whatever their streaks are then we will learn to EXPECT more from us .
EXPECTING more from us to ACCEPT the other person is simply
saying Love thy neighbour as your self.
It is so simple to write it down, now I have been practicing
this for the last one week and I am able to see that I can improve relationships
etc through this. I finally got the light go blink in my brain and was able to
relate this to the greatest Commandment.
How do we ACCEPT the other person? He has wronged me. He betrayed my trust, He is not doing what I asked him to. ( can be he or her) When we feel such thoughts in our minds we need to just think back and Accept that person as they are and expect more from us to go one step higher and accept and go ahead and do what you have to do. In due course you will see that the other person will change to your liking
God bless you in ACCEPTING
others as they are and EXPECTING more from you.
