Week 37 Mark
The Lord was asked a lot of questions.
One of them was: of all the commandments, which is the most important?
Out of that jumbled mass of hundreds-&-hundreds of regulations that Moses gave, the questioner was asking, can you highlight one of them?
And the Lord’s answer was that yes there is a hierarchy of laws, some are more important than others, and the premier law is this: the Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.
When you think about, this almost isn’t even a law. I’m not saying it isn’t a law since the Lord said it was. But it’s different from other doing-and-action-type-laws (like, for example mixing oil with a grain offering). This is a heavyweight law. It says that with all the constituent parts that make up me I have to love the Lord. It’s a kind of Total Personal Affection and Endorsement program. A Being Law. It means I’m on the Lord’s side. I’m devoted to him, trust him, revere him, defer to him, think he’s the greatest, back him up, agree with him, imitate him. I’m all in.
On a side-note, Law Number One also leaves me with the sense of its fearsome-awesomeness. Not panic. Not dread. But definite personal concern with being face-to-face with Law One.
Note: quotes from Mark 12:28 and 29-30 (quoted from Deuteronomy 6:4-5) (NLT)