The Two Great Commandments

¹“Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Matthew 22:37-39). The reason that we have two great commandments has less to do with who we love and more to do with how we love. After all, when we love and serve even “the least of [our] brethren”, we are loving and serving God (Matthew 25:40). The first and great commandment invites us to love God, and by extension all of God's children, with all of our heart. Our love must be one complete whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. There are no exceptions or exclusions. I believe that one of the reasons that God permits us to suffer and go through adversities, especially when we don't deserve it, is because we need to learn to love all of God and His works - the good and the bad. It is easy to love God or our brothers and sisters for the qualities that are attractive to us. But Jesus has invited us to love even our enemies. If we try to compartmentalize the parts of our heart that love the good things that happen to us, but hold in reserve the parts of our heart that hate and resent God for all of the terrible things that He has put us through, we are failing to keep the first great commandment. If we love some of God's children, but draw the line and exclude from our list of neighbors all of those that might belong to particular races, religions, or identities of any kind, then we are not loving with all of our heart. Love must be all in or it will eventually dwindle down to nothing. If the first commandment is about loving all, then the second commandment is about loving each neighbor individually, in the way that only we can. When we truly love someone, we are almost compelled to learn more about them. And when we learn the things that make them unique, we love them all the more for those qualities that are theirs and no one else's. The Second Great Commandment invites us to not allow our neighbors to facelessly disappear into the crowd but to discover for ourselves the infinite worth of each individual. When we leave behind the ninety and nine to express our love for the individual, we are promised that our love and joy for that one can be greater than the ninety and nine that we left behind. Our Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ love all of us together and They love each of us on a personal and individualized level. They have invited us to follow their example to Love all and each of our neighbors. I know that as we love God and all of His creations in their entirety with our whole being and as we love each of our brothers and sisters as only we can, then we will discover that we will never run out of room in our hearts but our capacity to love will only continue to grow and grow as we exercise both kinds of love.