Primary command
Love the one God with your whole being and love your neighbor as yourself.
Read the Scripture
Primary passage
Matthew 22:34–40
34 But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, gathered themselves together. 35 One of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him. 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” 37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
World English Bible
Mark
Mark 12:28–31
28 One of the scribes came and heard them questioning together, and knowing that he had answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the greatest of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The greatest is: ‘Hear, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 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 commandment. 31 The second is like this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
World English Bible
In context
Hear the whole passage.
Asked to identify the greatest command, Jesus joins wholehearted covenant love for God to active neighbor-love as the framework of the Law and Prophets.
What Jesus is forming in us
Jesus forms integrated people whose worship, thought, strength, desire, and relationships are ordered by love.
Practice this command
Take one clear step.
Set aside ten undistracted minutes to name what you love about God, then obey one thing He has already made clear.
Discuss
Talk about it.
What competes most strongly for the love and attention that belong to God?
Pray
Pray this.
Ask God to gather your divided heart and teach you to love Him with all you are.
Teach
Teach it simply.
How would you explain wholehearted love for God as more than emotion or religious activity?