The Hinge Of The Gospel

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Matthew 22:37-40

I don't usually use so many verses for one of these, but it's really not a terribly long passage...when you consider Christ just said He'd summarized the entirety of God's commandments. Yes, He says that all the law, all the prophets--in short, the entire Word of God as it was known at that time--hinged on two statements and one principle. Love. we hear it alot. We use it alot. Mostly it's misused anymore, adopted as a nice way to mask lust, bandied about to excuse any number of things. But love is a very big, very important thing that simply cannot be over-emphasized in Christianity or in our personal lives.

A Muslim man (in Yemen, I believe) recently told a missionary he'd been talking with, "I never knew until I met you that there were any Christians who actually loved God." How sad a statement is that? When I heard that, I kind've felt like I'd been punched in the solar plexus. It ought to make us all feel a little sick. I wonder how many of our friends, neighbors and co-workers think the same? Oh, you'd be surprised. The Gospel hinges on love just as the law did. Based on our love, I wonder how much leverage it has.