n e w c h u r c h l i f e : j u ly / au g u s t 2 0 1 3
Sound, clean weapons for life’s fight.
Protect my morals, keep them high,
Grant this to a Scouter such as I.
You can see commitment here, especially the part that says, “Help me,
Lord, to reach my goal.” To reach our goals, to make achievements, can only
be done if we have some level of commitment, which the Lord gladly supplies
when we ask.
As with many things, commitment doesn’t really become real in our lives
until we actually use it. We might wonder, “How can I best commit to the
Lord?” Just to keep things clear, let’s take a look at an answer to this question
in Matthew 22: 37-40 (the Two Great Commandments – to love the Lord with
all your heart, soul and mind, and your neighbor as yourself).
The entire Word revolves around these two commandments; in fact, our
lives revolve around them. Notice that the important word the Lord used in
this commandment is “all.” We are to love the Lord with all our heart and all
our soul, not some of it, or half of it: all. So we either commit all the way to
following the Lord, or not at all. Similarly this is true with the neighbor, except
we aren’t told to love them with all our heart and soul but to treat them equally
as ourselves. Yet, since we are still to love the neighbor, we can only do so if we
do it all the way.
It would be easy for us to love only our friends and family, but the spectrum
of neighbors to be loved goes way beyond the people we see every day.
According to Arcana Coelestia 6819 there are several degrees of the neighbor.
There is the singular person to be loved. Better than that, there is a plurality
of people to be loved called the society. Even better than that is to love our
country, which includes all people in the United States. Even better than that
is to love the Church, which includes all people around the world who worship
the Lord. Still better than that we are to love the Lord’s Kingdom, which is the
entire human race, including those in the spiritual world. Still better than that
is to love the Lord Himself, who is at the top of the ladder, so to speak, with all
the lower steps being the lower degrees of the neighbor.
Consider this the challenge: can we love the neighbor all the way? The
Lord certainly has enabled us to do so. Like Caleb and Joshua who get to see
the Promised Land, we get rewarded by committing to loving the Lord and the
neighbor in every way possible.
Now what these rewards may look like are beyond badges and pins. It’s
something you might just have to try to discover for yourself. Once you get
them, these blessings, you’ll know that this is what it’s all about. But, first
things first, you need to commit.
Amen.
Lessons: Numbers 32: 6-12; Matthew 22: 37-40; Arcana Coelestia 6819
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