ROOTED - Saturday, July 19, 2025

Matthew 22:37
37 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength… 

Reflection: Question #37
Written By: Pastor Jesse Caro

Question: What is the sum of the ten commandments?

Answer: The sum of the ten commandments is to love our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind, and our neighbor as ourselves.

At United Baptist Church (the church I ministered in from 2014 until we came to Lynchburg) we had a simple tagline: “loving God, loving neighbor.” It had no “tagline” or anything that defined why it existed when I became the pastor. As a church planter, however, I developed a very simple approach to ministry that I took to United… and it was distilled in those few words. I thought, “if you can do a good job of teaching and preaching a solid, biblical, view of God, then people will love him and, in turn, love their neighbors.” That was the idea: faithfully teach about the nature of God such that we learn to love him, and therefore others. The church (I think everyone there might agree) was myopic, self-focused, and uninterested in the community. So, we shifted.

Loving God must, turn into loving neighbor. But there are dangers here we must know. Loving neighbor is possible without loving God. That is, we can deceive ourselves that loving neighbor is the goal and if we do so we must be, necessarily, loving God. This is simply not the case. Rightly loving neighbor must be born out of loving God (which comes from knowing who he is… and, essentially, falling in love with him). So, it begins with love of God. We must define God well (not a god of our own making), and love our neighbor well (which, in part, means we serve them). All of the Law and the Prophets boil down to this basic idea: love God, love neighbor. If we do not love God deeply (heart, soul, mind, strength… all of us… every ounce of us), we simply will not love neighbor as deeply. This is a spiritual axiom. It is a spiritual fact. A reality. Our love of neighbor must flow out of the deep well of genuine love of God. This is not a sappy sentimentalism but a genuine commitment and love for God. If we have that… we will love our neighbors in a way that fulfills the heart of God.

Prayer
Lord, may our love for others be deeply rooted in our love for you. May we not believe that our love for others is a substitute for a deep love for you, but rather that it is an outcome of that love.