“But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
—Matthew 22:34-40

Love God. Love others. Jesus sums up all the law in these two sentences. Pretty easy to memorize, eh? Every time we see the sign of the cross, we are reminded of this. The vertical beam represents our relationship with God (however strong or weak it is). The horizontal beam represents our relationship with others in this world. Every day when we get up and check our to-do list, we have two assignments: love God. love others. Why do we make it so hard to follow Christ and to do what we were created to do?

Talk about bringing light to the dark world. If every day we acted out just this one passage from all the bible we would literally change the world…and ourselves.

But we are quite unable to do this in our own power, especially while we remain so in love with ourselves, our possessions, and our hobbies. The power comes from loving God. And just like any relationship, loving God starts with spending time with Him, learning about Him by reading His Word (gospel of John is a good start), and just talking to Him about what’s on your mind and in your heart. Be honest with Him (He knows everything about you, you know). And He loves you so much.

Our ability to love others is dynamically impacted by our love relationship with God. Loving God allows us to love others. Put something down and spend time with God. Changing the world starts by being changed within by your loving Creator.