The Hardest Part?

In the board game Clue and in the online game Among Us, the objective is to determine who the killer is. Thankfully, determining who is the gruesome killer is not a decision most of us ever have to worry about. But that doesn’t mean doing investigative work to make sure WE aren’t the bad guy is a decision we are free from. Unfortunately, many people choose not to look too deep into who they are, how they treat others, or how they respond to temptations.

Jesus gave a powerful summary of the entire Bible in Matthew 22:37-39, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ (Deuteronomy 6:5) This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Leviticus 19:18)

At face value, this seems like an oversimplification of 66 inspired books that outline laws, rituals, and examples of good and bad followers of those laws and rituals. However, when we ponder the depth of what Jesus is revealing, we see a self-directed investigation of our own thoughts and motives.

First, a clearer picture of that command is given in 1 John 4:19-21, “We love because He first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And He has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.”

So, loving our neighbor is key to truly loving God. But loving our neighbor is obviously the more challenging command. However, what makes loving my neighbor so difficult? Consider the endless examples of greed, jealousy, lust, or revenge we read about in the Scriptures. Those are emotions that can dominate our life, unless we do as God told Cain in Genesis 4:7, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” In other words, we have to control ourselves. That part of us that can’t accept who we are because we’re constantly comparing ourselves to someone else. That part of ourselves that only sees our failures and can’t see the blessings in life.

What if we were the source of division and hatred towards our brothers and sisters? It’s an awful thought, but David realized the need to examine himself to make sure that wasn’t so. Psalms 139:23-24, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

James 4:1-3, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”