DO YOU LOVE LIKE HIM?

Luke 10:25-28

Luk 10:25 Now an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus, saying, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Luk 10:26 He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”
Luk 10:27 The expert answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbour as yourself.”
Luk 10:28 Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

loving without limits

This passage is the set-up for the all too familiar parable of the Good Samaritan. An expert in religious law asks Jesus for the key to his system (which he had heard is supposed to guarantee a resurrection unto eternal life). Jesus responds to the question by pointing this expert back to the scriptures that he is all too familiar with. He tells him that the key he looks for is there. If you insist on defining your faith by something you “do” then there is no better answer than that which the expert gave in verse 27. I think Jesus hints to the man that his question was not altogether adequate, because grace first produces faith, then works.

But Jesus also uses the question to launch a story about the kind of love which is love enough. It is love without the usual limits. It is loving God with everything you have, and loving someone else without the retraints of self-preservation or predjudice. If love is to be enough, it must be love without limits. It must be love like his.

LORD, may our faith in you lead us to love like you.