The Lord’s Prayer – the King (part 2)
If we really want the kingdom of God to come, we need to understand its basic principles. In our previous blog we talked about loving God being the most important of those principles.
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: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these. – Marc 12:30-31
According to Jesus, the second principle is to love our neighbor as ourselves. Loving God the way that He deserves is not an easy task, but He is a lovable being. On the other hand, to love our neighbors mean to love imperfect people, who we might or might not like. That is the reason why loving God is the most important thing in the kingdom. We need to love God first, only then we can learn to love others. Once we start in this process, we will begin to grasp the purpose of God’s kingdom.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son” shows us how great God’s love for us is. He didn’t love us because we were lovable. In fact, we were in so bad condition that only God himself could save us. The kingdom of God calls for everyone to have the same perspective. It won’t be easy for us (as it wasn’t easy for God). So, how do we love our neighbors?
- Being humble – who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped (Philippians 2:5-8)
- Having mercy – I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners (Matthew 9:13)
- Forgiving – If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him (Luke 17:3-4)
- Serving – even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve (Matthew 20:28)
- Doing justice – taking care of those in need (especially the widows and the orphans – Isaiah 1:16-17, Galatians 2:10, James 1:27)
- Being peacemakers – they shall be called sons of God (Matthew 5:9)
Why so much emphasis on love in God’s kingdom? We will continue this conversation in our next blog.
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