‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’ Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. Matthew 22:36-37
The familiar phrase in the title above is a sound bit of advice in every aspect of our lives. Because we have limited resources with which to work, it is imperative that we spend those resources in the most efficient way possible. Knowing that we have a finite measure of time, energy, wealth, etc., we must not spend too much on matters of less importance to the neglect of those things that are of greater importance. The principle is simple enough, but sometimes it may be difficult to clearly understand an obligation’s rank of importance among the responsibilities we each have to fulfill. Thankfully, such is not the case regarding God’s expectations for our spiritual lives.
Though every principle in the covenant is important, there are matters that carry more weight than others (Matthew 23:23). Thankfully, as has always been true, the Lord has stated those weightier matters in simple enough terms that we should be able to understand them rather easily. These weightier matters are broad, sweeping principles that demand fulfillment of a great many more detailed principles to fulfill. Consider some of the language found in this vein throughout God’s dealings with His people.
In Deuteronomy 10:12-13, Moses asked the children of Israel what God required of them. In answering the question, he did not launch into the more than six hundred individual commandments given in the Law of Moses. He named five broad principles that were to govern all their lives: fear the Lord, walk in His ways, love Him, serve Him with the whole heart, and keep His commandments and statutes. In Micah 6:8, the prophet picks up this broad theme in calling the nation back to the Lord, and he sums it up in three basic principles: do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. In Matthew 23:23, Jesus gave three broad principles as the weightier matters of the law the Pharisees were neglecting: justice, mercy, and faith.
None of these lists is exhaustive of all that God expects from His people, but they represent putting “first things first” in pursuit of faithfulness to God. These things are not arbitrarily chosen as the first things in God’s covenants with His people, but they are of first rank because establishing them in our hearts and minds fuels the pursuit of the rest of His will. If we fear the Lord, love the Lord, serve Him with the whole heart, determine to keep His commandments and statutes, walk justly, love mercy, walk humbly, etc., then we will be better positioned to fulfill the more minute details of what is expected of us. If this is not our mindset, then we will become like the people of Judah in Malachi’s day who said of their service to God “Oh, what a weariness…” (Malachi 1:13).
In Matthew 22:36-37, Jesus further distilled the weightier matters into the weightiest matter. He took it from “first things” to “the first thing.” When asked what the greatest commandment in the law was, He boiled everything down to love. Wholehearted love for God is the engine that drives everything. As Jesus said in John 14:15, “If you love Me, keep my commandments.” John echoed this truth in 1 John 5:1-3 when he declared that keeping God’s commandments “…is the love of God…” This is not only the demonstration of our love for the Lord, but it is the demonstration of our love for His people (Matthew 22:38-39). So important is this that the entirety of the law hangs from love for God and love for neighbor (cf. Matthew 25:31-46). So, let us put our whole hearts into putting first things first. If we do, the rest of our efforts to serve our Lord will become second nature.