Our discovery this week is that God is love, and love needs to be our only response - love of God and love of neighbour as ourselves. If we consider that God is love and that all love comes from God, we realise that the love with which we love comes from God, and the love with which we are loved comes from God.
Jesus recognises that the scribe has grasped the significance of the greatest commandment and commends him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”
How would I feel if I heard God say this to me? Is this my hope? Is this what brings meaning to my life?
What is this Kingdom? From what Jesus says, we learn very quickly that it is not about wealth, power, privilege or status. We recall Jesus saying, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God,” (Mark 10:23). Ezekiel 36:26 teaches us that God gives a heart of flesh to replace the heart of stone. It is not about ego-inflation but about self-forgetting love. Here, Jesus proclaims the scribe as wise and close to the
Kingdom because he has come to a deep conviction that love of God, love of neighbour and self include us in the Kingdom.
This week let me, like the scribe, set aside resistances and open my heart to hear and receive Jesus’ invitation to, “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength... and to love your neighbour as yourself” because Jesus tells us this is what is most important.
How will I express my love of God today? Is it my desire to live with the attitudes and actions of one who loves God? How will I continue to write my love story with God each day?
