We seem to have spent a lot of time on good things, but have been overzealous enough to leave out the best things. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what we should be focusing on. Maybe we should ask what God thinks is most important. When religious leaders tried to trap Jesus, asking what the greatest command was, he quoted the Old Law. Matthew records his words:
Paul wrote the disciples at Corinth what he thought was most important:
Are these the things we share? Are these the things we are known for? How do people know we are Christians? Jesus said that we should love each other and,
There’s a lot of talk these days in the churches of Christ about being liberal and becoming “denominational”. The ironic thing is, I think these changes are happening not because people are being swept up in a tide of “doing what feels good”, but because people are actually studying the Bible and asking God what He wants.
It is good to be sure that our practices are in line with what God wants, but I think recent history shows us that when we concentrate on these things to the exclusion of what is most important, it just causes division and prevents people from coming to know God.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. (22:37, NIV, quoting Deut. 6:5)
The greatest command is to love God. But He doesn’t finish there – He goes on to discuss the second greatest command:
Love your neighbor as yourself. (Mt. 22:39, NIV, quoting Lev. 19:18)
He said “all the Law” hangs on these two commands.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day… (I Cor. 15:3-4, NIV)
Is this what we share when we share our faith? Jesus said that loving God and loving others were the two greatest commands. Paul said that the most important thing is that Jesus died and was raised again.
By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:34, NIV)
We have spent a lot of time cataloguing lists of worship rules and trying to determine who is saved and who is not, by drawing a fine line and grouping people on one side or the other. The more I read the Bible, and the more I study, the more I think that spending all our time focusing on these things will not bring people to the Lord. Maybe we should be spending time on the greatest things and the most important things.
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