Living the Christian Life Magazine
God is to be loved above everything – above all angels, or men, or any created thing.
But after God, amongst created things, our neighbour is above all to be loved. And we are to extend to our neighbour that kind of love with which we love ourselves.
We are to extend to those with whom we rub shoulders with day by day, the right to live peacefully and securely and desire for him all those good things both for the body and for the soul that we desire for ourselves. This is what our Lord himself teaches us. “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, even so do unto them.”
“There is none other commandment greater than these”.
St. Matthew in the New Testament says, “On these two commandments hang the whole Law and the prophets.” There is no commandment greater than these, because all the precepts of the Divine Law are included in them. So that our Lord here teaches us that we ought continually to have these two precepts in our minds and before our eyes, and direct all our thoughts and words and actions by them, and regulate our whole life according to them. (Matthew 22:40)
These commandments are the antidote for the peace and enjoyment for men and women everywhere who seek and desire and strive for peace The emphasis of these commandments also teaches that although we may have human rights and the right to do what we want, yet with these rights come responsibility to act and behave in a manner which does not conflict with our neighbours rights.
The Lord Jesus says to His disciples prior to His return to heaven says:-
“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14:27)
We can only know real lasting peace when we follow in His footsteps and live compassionately one with another.
The True Profession of the Citizen of the Kingdom.
We called to be People who would who would be as the light of the world
The world in which we are to shine as lights is vastly different to the virtues seen in the Beatitudes . A fairly accurate description of the human race might be furnished by taking the Beatitudes, turning them wrong side out and saying,
"Here is your human race."
For the exact opposite of the virtues in the Beatitudes are the very qualities which distinguish human life and conduct.In the world of men we find nothing approaching the virtues of which Jesus spoke in the opening words of Sermon on the Mount.
Instead of poverty of spirit - we find the rankest kind of pride;
instead of mourners - we find pleasure seekers;
instead of meekness, - we find Gross arrogance;
instead of hunger after righteousness - we hear men saying, "I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing";
instead of mercy - we find cruelty;
instead of purity of heart, - corrupt imaginings;
instead of peacemakers - we find men quarrelsome and resentful;
And this is the more to be wondered at seeing that these are the evils, which make life the bitter struggle it is for all of us. All our heartaches and a great many of our physical ills spring directly out of our sins. Pride, arrogance, resentfulness, evil imaginings, malice, greed: these are the sources of more human pain than all the diseases that ever afflicted mortal flesh.
It is into this world where not only are we to shine as torch bearers but also to be “The salt of the earth, to impart a Spiritual morality
The Greatest Statement Ever Made
One of the greatest statements every made, even exceeding that of the declaration of our Magna Carta was made by the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament of the Bible. Who says these words
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31)