While I was not planning on using bible verses on this blog, I have re-thought that idea. The bible is a big part of my life, and there is something I want to share with my readers that I learned from the bible. I am not saying that anyone has to agree with me or that anyone has to believe in the bible. I am using these verses to show where I received the knowledge of giving. This post shows how I have expanded on that idea. I want to reinforce that this blog and the people who subscribe to it are not necessarily Christian. Also, this blog is not affiliated to any one religion, while some people including myself may have ties to one faith or another. This blog is about the universal truth of goodness, what we can do to help others, and expanding our own knowledge of spiritual truth.
For Reference:
The verses that I draw these ideas from are Matthew 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-34; Luke 10:25-37
For this post I am going to use Matthew 22: 34-40 due to its short length.
' But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?" And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." '
Since I have read them, these verses have been a very strong foundation of my faith. While I am not perfect at it, I try my best to love the Lord my God with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my mind. Again, I am not perfect, but I try my best to love my neighbor as myself.
Now to talk about the second commandment in this verse. If I love my neighbor as myself, would I withhold a need they have if I had the extra in my life that they need? If you have not guessed, this is a question I ask you to pose to yourself and answer for yourself. I imagine that your answer will be the same as mine. No, if I love my neighbor as myself I would not withhold anything I had the ability to give them that they needed.
Now comes the tough part, loving our neighbors as ourselves. This took me a long time but for me, the closer I grew to God the closer I grew to people. The really funny thing about that is the second commandment is in my experience near impossible without first working at the first one. In order to love our neighbors as ourselves, we must first love God with all our heart.
"All the love in life flows from God." This is my belief and I am going to speculate on it even though some may not agree and I may be wrong. I am not going to speculate on it in this post but the next one. Thoughts and Beliefs 2
