FROM THE PASTOR

Do you know the most important thing in the world? Do you know what is more important than anything else? Do you know what is more important than your home, your job and even your family? It is that thing that affects everything else. It is that which makes great church, a great life, a great family.

A great commitment to the great commandment and the great commission.

A great commitment to the great commandment and the great commission will grow a great life and it will affect everything in our lives. We become what we are committed to. What are you committed to today? Maybe you have never thought about that before. We are committed to something and those things that we are committed to affect our lives each and every day.

Jesus says, “Go into all the world and tell everybody. Make disciples so people can come to know Me and be baptized in Me and taught in Me.”

That is the Great Commission. Sadly for many looking for purpose and direction in their lives it becomes the thing that we omit, the great omission. If we are truly believers in Jesus we should respond and be obedient to what he has told us to do.

There was a day when Jesus, when he was walking on the earth, was challenged as He often was by one of the Pharisees, one of the teachers of that day. They were always trying to trap Him in something. One of them said to Him, “Jesus, what is the greatest commandment in all of the Old Testament?”

Without blinking an eye Jesus said (Mark 12) “The most important one,’ Jesus answered, ‘is this. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’”

Of all the words in it there’s an incredibly important word throughout it. All. Love the Lord your God with half your heart or most of your heart, isn’t what it says. It says, ”Love the Lord your God with all your heart... Love the Lord your God with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.” During the month of February we are going to talk together about life’s greatest priorities.

Jesus said this is life’s greatest priority. Nothing is more important than the way you and I love God in our lives. Jesus said the most important thing you can do with your life is these two words – Love God.

There is nothing more important than that. If I do that, you have done the most important thing in life. If you’ve done just that one thing. Would you like to learn how to more deeply love the Lord? Jesus says, Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.

Jesus never asks us to do something we can’t do. If you read all the commands of Jesus in the New Testament, not one of them is Jesus saying, “Here’s something that maybe you can shoot for but you’re never going to make it.”

He knows us and He only asks us to do what He knows He can do in us and through us. So when Jesus says here’s the thing to shoot for He’s saying, “I see in you the potential to be that kind of a person.”

Join me as we learn together how to build an all out love for the Lord.

See You in Worship. Pastor John