DECEMBER 15
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew 22: 36 - 40
Commandments are different from ‘beliefs’, but they share a common foundation - Christ as the cornerstone.
When Jesus was asked which was the greatest commandment, overlooking the reason why he was asked, which was clearly divisive, he gave this answer,
“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
I want to explore for a moment the words that begin verse 39.
‘And the second is like it’
The word ‘like’ as described in the Oxford dictionary is ‘ having the same characteristics or qualities as’. However a look at the Greek-lexicon translation strengthens this word further as it defines ‘like’ as ‘together, at the same place and time’ with the origin of the word being ‘together’. So what this is saying is that you are to love your neighbour as you do God. This is not new theology but it does beg the question, if you don’t get on with your neighbours (defined from the Greek as friend or any other person) how can you say you love God?
This season is a great time to make things right. If you do not have anyone to put this commandment into practise for, please pray for the church, and these blogs as our aim is to reach and teach for Christ.
Today's song is "The Lord is holy" - sung by the Maranatha singers. 
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Housekeeping details for you
The point of this short blog will become clear if you decide to use this reading in the way we intend it. Netherfield Seventh-day Adventist Church believes in healthy churches. You can see what that means if you head to the relevant Healthy Churches page of the website. We also want other churches to be healthy. That means you can join in our campaign to create healthy churches, with healthy people serving the people in those churches.
A healthy church is one where Jesus comes first. A healthy church is one where the people work together to put Jesus first. One thing we are doing is to join people together to spread that news. I would like you to look at our prayer partners page. This will explain how we want you to use this short devotional. Very basically we want you to find a like-minded Christian friend who you will join with to : choose to pray together every day, decide together on a way to serve other people together, to help them grow as Christians - and to invite the Holy Spirit into your life every day. This blog that you will receive every day simply gives a common spiritual purpose. If you are a newcomer and want to join the blog with this object in mind click here
