When Jesus was asked as to which of the commandments were the most important of all, He replied, “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophet hang on these two commandments.” (Matt 22:37-40)
Everything that really matter hinges on these two potent statements … Love God and love your neighbor (one another). That’s what church is all about. That’s what Christianity is all about. That’s what Jesus’ Kingdom is all about … loving God and loving one another. Fail either one of these two and what do we have? A religion!
Back in the days when Jesus walked the earth, Judaism was but a religion. Once it was about a loving relationship between God and His people, but through time it evolved into a religion where it’s all about rituals, laws, festivities, do’s and don’ts, etc. In this context, Jesus appeared, not to revive a religion but to begin a movement … His church. He had no buildings, no titles, no program, no fixed day services. It was just a bunch of people who followed Him, loved Him and loved people. In Acts, people called the them “Christians” which literally meant “little Jesus” for they were like Him, loving God and loving people. People came to know Christ through them. There were no church buildings, no fixed day services, no programs. They simply met at homes and public places as often as they could. All they did was love God and love one another. It was only after 300 hundred years later that church evolved into what it is today … buildings with fancy names, programs and activities, men of God instead of servants of God,"soulish" worship … some of which had become the “sacred cows” of today’s modern Christianity. Oh how I wish we can bring back that old time religion where it’s all about what Jesus intended for it to be … loving God first and then loving people.
“Give me that old time religion, God, forgive us our short comings”.
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