Matthew 22:36 asks which is the greatest commandment?
No doubt every religious person from all time all over the planet has asked himself and his god what must I do to please you? Religion is the answer to that question.
Over time and in many places that answer has become quite burdensome to those who seek to please the god of their or others creation.
The One True God made a personal appearance as one of us in Jesus and so the question was asked of Him what must we do to appease You? The answer is simple and immensely difficult.
The first part of the answer is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.
This seems simple enough and if answered by how we feel most of us would say we are doing a fairly good job of it. If this requirement were measured by our obedience to God a very different result would occur.
Regrettably God will measure us by our obedience and not our feelings.
The second part of the answer is where it gets really hard. If we want to please God we must love people like we love ourselves.
This is immensely difficult for we are a selfish, vengeful and arrogant people who care far more for ourselves than we do our fellow man. God unfortunately measures our love for Him by our demonstration of love for others, especially those who are unkind, mean and awful toward us.
God does this because that is how we treated Him when He lived among us and how most of humanity has treated Him from all time including today when we ignore Him, disregard Him and refuse to live lives pleasing to Him always.
The One True God has not burdened us with excessive commands yet His commands are impossible for us to obey without His help.
The impossibility of obedience to His commands is not meant to lead us to despair but to humility where we fall on our face and cry-out to Him for mercy and grace.
To those who acknowledge their poverty of spirit He comes with forgiveness and His presence to work through us all that is pleasing to Him including loving Him and our neighbor as we love ourselves.
