Jesus was right. Love is all you need to answer what’s right or wrong!
😎Life
This last Monday was the last day of our catholic families retreat. Over the past days we’ve been discussing 10 commandments. (In the meantime I was also listening to Szustak’s commentary in Polish). In the end they can be simplified to only 2 commandments which are all about love:
“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. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22,36-40)
Lots of nuance…
When we were analyzing the 10 commandments one by one I realized that each of them carries lots of nuance. Lots of hidden meaning that can be interpreted in many different ways. Depending how you look at an action - it’s not always clear if it is really a sin or not. If it’s a good action or a bad deed. It really depends…
We tend to get very conservative…
In the discussions that followed after each commandment I noticed that when in doubt we would usually tend to take the conservative approach. We would very eagerly judge something as a sin. As a bad thing.
…which leads to being overly judgmental…
The Bible says:
“Judge not, that you be not judged.“ (Matthew 7,1)
Yet, I realized that as we take more conservative approach to actions, we start being very judgmental and we can easily fall into a trap of deeper conservatism like extremism, homophobia or nationalism. Which is not good.
And we are not God. We really shouldn’t judge as much. If at all.
So how to fight the urge to judge and how to really know if an action is good or bad? Turns out we can always refer back to the 2 love commandments shared by Jesus Christ himself in Matthew 22,36-40:
If it’s out of love ❤️ - it’s good!
If your action towards someone or yourself is motivated by love - it’s good. If someone else’s action is done with love, it’s usually good, too. Just look at things with love - look at people with love - and when with each of your action, your motivation is love, compassion and understanding - you should be on the safe side. After all - it’s cliche, but love is all you need!
So don’t judge other people but look at them and their actions searching for love and motivation to do something really good:
Therefore by their fruits you will know them. (Matthew 7,20)
It’s all about love. And fruits of that love.