The two commandments
Is Christianity complicated?
We know it is wrong to murder, steal, and cheat; but are there a million laws we should be trying to keep, or how do we know if we are doing the right thing? Is Christianity that complicated? Of course not! God’s ways are often too simple for us to grasp! As a matter of fact, the whole law can be summed up into two commandments.
Two simple commandments!
Matthew 22:37-40, “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. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.“
It is as simple as that! If everybody loved the Lord and each other, like Christ loved us, there would be no sin in the world! There would be no murder, no hate, no bitterness, no adultery, no stealing nor any other kind of sin, if we only loved the Lord with all our heart and our neighbor as our own self!
Do onto others…
Matthew 7:12, “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.“
That’s right! Whatever you do to others, ask yourself, “Would I like them to do this to me?” Is that such a hard rule to live by? 🙂
Love CANNOT get you into heaven
Don’t get me wrong; even though true love is the core of how we should treat others, it is NOT what gets a person into heaven. How can love take away our past sins? It can’t, only Jesus can do that, and our only way to receive forgiveness is to believe upon Him.
The core of our salvation depends on our belief in Jesus, as He is the Son of God and died on the cross for our sins.
John 3:18, “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
Love is important, but love alone will not get a person into heaven! If you would like to know more about why we need Jesus, please check out my sermon titled, “Why we need Jesus.”