A couple nights ago I was reading my bible and currently I’m reading through Mark. The passage I read happened to be Mark 12:13-40. I read the whole thing then read it just one more time to gain some more clarity, but one thing stuck out to me the most. The spot happened to be Mark 12: 29-33, where Jesus is talking to a scribe, right after he was talking with some other high ranking religious leaders. The scribe had basically asked Jesus what was the greatest and most important commandment that God has ever given. The story unfolds like this:
Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” And the scribe said to Him, “Right, Teacher, You have truly stated that He is One; and there is no one else besides Him; And to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength and to love one’s neighbor as himself, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
The most important thing to take from this, when coupled with the rest of the passage, is that God wants our hearts, not our actions. He doesn’t want complex answers to complex questions and He certainly doesn’t want our prideful actions either. He really only wants us and our hearts, not the “burnt offerings and sacrifices.” He calls us to follow him and leave our own agenda’s and to-do-lists somewhere else, preferably is a dark, bottomless abyss. It’s time to drop the empty rituals and start giving our hearts to Christ.
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