In Mark 12:28-31 Jesus responded to a question from a scribe. The question was “Which is the first commandment of all?” Jesus’ answer was “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandant. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these (NKJV).” Wow! These commandments are the bottomline of our everyday life in Christ with our brethren. 

 

As followers of Jesus we are commanded to love God with all that we are. Coupled with our love for God we are to love our neighbor. Loving God and people go together and *cannot* be separated. Sometimes those of us in ministry think we love ministry but it is the people we cannot stand. Some eople we serve in our churches, specialized ministries, communities, schools, our coworkers and even our family members can be really difficult to love. People are messy. This is why George Verwer calls missiology “messy-ology”. Before Jesus ascended to the right hand of His Father He gave the so-called great commission to His twelve disciples. They were a motley bunch and He had no backup plan. They turned the world upside-down as they scattered among the nations with the gospel. The same is true of us today. We are imperfect and messy but living according to the commandments, by the grace of God, are required of us too. Let us learn to say from the heart when we offend people or make life difficult for others “I am sorry. Please forgive me.” If we truly disagree with someone let us disagree with an agreeable attitude. Let us not be disagreeable ornery people. Ministry will always be messy because people are messy. At best we are cracked pots but the treasure we contain is the gospel. As we go in the gospel let’s love people as we love the One who is sending us.