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The Greatest Thing You Can Do For God


Pause: With Pastor Aaron
So the question is asked, "What is the greatest thing you can ever do for God?" There are a multitude of common replies. Feed the hungry. House the homeless. Watch out for the orphan. Support the widow. Give to the church of your time, talent and treasure. 
All these replies are excellent, yet could all of these replies also be wrong? Could these responses be done and yet we still miss the greatest thing we can ever do for God.
Today's text that gave me pause...
Mark 12:28-31 ”28 One of the teachers of the law ... asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Note Jesus response to the idea of the greatest thing a man can do for God. He gives an answer focuses on 3 distinct points, yet it remains a singular answer. He starts with the Shema, a prayer that serves as the centerpiece of the morning and evening prayer ritual. I believe He did so because it centers the people around this thought,
Everything good come from this. You can not have good, or do good without this foundation. (Psalm 14:1-3, 53:1-3, Mark 10:18, Romans 3:10-12)
Once that foundation is established, and God does not compete for your attentions but leads and guides them through relationship in Christ, you can move to the second focus of the command, love God with everything.
Sadly we have people who embrace the idea of a sloppy grace. They act as if because grace is given they have a license to give God a poor effort. This is in direct contrast to this verse. I see Jesus as emphasizing what Paul would later reflect in Phil 3:14 "I press on (strain, struggle, exhaust myself) to win the prize. Grace does not imply a sense of being along for the ride. Grace implies a love and appreciation that prompts us to do what we do to reflect that love we have been given, not to fulfill a duty.
The last aspect of this is the third focus of the verse. Jesus said that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Allow me again to show you that this is not a command given in order of importance as if to say, Love the Lord and then love your neighbor. As I see this it is saying:
You can not do the greatest thing for God WITHOUT loving your neighbor. 
I draw this from the end of the text "(((This))) is the greatest commandment." He talks about these 3 points operating in perfect harmony then by saying there are no commandments better than these.
To love our neighbor as God loves us is to love based not upon their actions, but in the same love that we are given. God doesn't wait until we perform to send His love. His love is on our doorstep like a mail order package. All we have to do is bring it in.
It's hard to love, in our humanity, when someone does not reciprocate that love, but it is precisely what we are called to do in Christ. We can love that way because He is the center of it, and as we pursue Him with a reckless abandon, we are empowered by Holy Spirit to act towards others as He does.
Thus to do the greatest thing for God, we must act exactly as He does. 
Grace and peace...
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Location: Robinson, IL 62454, USA

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