Scripture Reading: Matthew 19:16-30

The life that Jesus requires of his followers might seem simple when you hear it boiled down to two essential callings in life—loving God and loving others. Yet, the longer that you and I live, the more we come to realize how difficult it really is to actually love God and love others. Primarily, the difficulty lies in the realization that each of us are so prone to loving someone else more than God and others—that is, ourselves.

You and I don’t naturally seek to love God and others, but instead, we’re hardwired to think about our own interests more than anything or anyone else. This is precisely the reason that we’re not more generous with our time, talents, and treasures towards others. Instead of using what we have to invest in those that God places around us, we can be tempted into actually using those that God placed around us for our own gain. Our jobs can become all about our own career and life advancement. Our money can become all about our own comforts and security. Our days and time can be filled to the brim without any room or margin to even serve or care for others, especially those who can’t do anything in return for us. This is just how we’re all prone to function.

So how do we break from what comes natural to us so that we start to actually love God and others? In a sobering way, Jesus actually says to his disciples, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (Matt. 19:26) Jesus wants us to know that loving God and others isn’t something we can muster up on our own. Rather, it comes from the Holy Spirit helping you to grasp and grow deeper in the love that God has proven to you at the cross. The more that this happens, the more you can’t help but to love God more and to love others as He does. “We love because he first loved us.” (1Jn. 4:19)