Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second like to it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.
Many of us can recite Yeshua’s (Jesus’) words about the two greatest commandments—loving God and loving our neighbor—but we often miss how deeply intertwined they are. We treat them like separate tasks: one for God, one for people. But in Greek, Yeshua uses the phrase homoia aute, which means “like to it.” The second commandment isn’t just next in line—it shares the same nature. This small detail radically changes how we understand the passage: loving others is essential to loving God.
To love God with all your heart, soul, and strength is also to love your neighbor. The two are inseparable. If we claim to adore God but harbor bitterness or indifference toward those around us, we aren’t fulfilling the first commandment at all. As John said, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar” (1 John 4:20).
Every act of kindness, patience, or selfless love toward others reflects our love for God. Each interaction becomes a sacred chance to live out His heart. When we serve instead of demand, forgive instead of retaliate, and bless instead of curse, we’re not just doing good—we’re mirroring the character of our God.
Yeshua didn’t give us abstract ideals; He gave us a way to live. His commandments are not just rules, but daily invitations to shift our hearts from selfishness to love.
As we consistently walk in His ways, loving others becomes second nature because our love for God becomes alive and genuine. These two commands were never meant to stand apart—they are joined by design, each strengthening the other and drawing us deeper into relationship with Him.
This is the heartbeat of the Kingdom: love that flows upward in worship to God and outward in love, mercy, and grace toward people. It’s not a love that stays in the pews or within the pages of Scripture—it moves, it serves, and it sacrifices. And as we walk this path daily, that love begins to shape us. Slowly, we reflect the heart of the One who loved us first, whose life was the perfect picture of love in action. In following Yeshua, love becomes more than an idea—it becomes our way of life.
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy Devotions. This devotional was originally published on Worthy Devotions and was reproduced with permission.
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The Hebrew word for “face” is “panim”, (the Hebrew letters, peh-nun-yud-mem), literally “faces”, a plural word. Normally, when we think about God, we focus only upon one of His “faces” at a time. God is “love” – or He is “holy”– or He is “just”— or He’s a God of “wrath”. Yet, of course, ALL these “faces” are His at once; and so the word “panim” accurately reflects the truth of God’s multifaceted being. As we get to know Him better we begin to appreciate the complexity of His nature and the fact that our focus on one “face” is a very limited view, since there’s so much more going on in His amazing “Personality”.
Patience is one of those things… so hard to learn it… so hard to practice it faithfully in our daily walk. It’s one of of those things I truly wish we didn’t have to learn — but God requires it of us! As I was reading through this passage again in Exodus, it dawned on me that Moses sat on the mountain for six entire days before the Lord spoke to him. He had to patiently wait for the Lord for six days!
The book of Isaiah, often called the Old Testament Gospel, reveals that a child was to be born and his name called “The Mighty God, and the Everlasting Father”. We know that this Child was Yeshua (Jesus) of Nazareth, that He is the unique Son of God, the express image of the invisible God. The throne of David was to be given to Him and He now holds its “key”, a symbol of the right and authority of His reign, which will be consummated when He returns to this world and restores the Kingdom to Israel [Acts 1:6-7].
When I studied Isaiah 53 earnestly in the ancient Hebrew, I was taken back by the Hebrew word for “afflicted” (me-u-neh). In modern Hebrew this word means “tortured”. When I was young, and first learned what torture actually involved, my soul was shocked that this could happen to people; in fact that it was happening to people. That a person could be kept alive for the purpose of intentionally causing him intense agonizing pain was an astounding enigma for my young soul. It really frightened me; and I think that fear of torture is probably the greatest fear that humans can experience. We read about people who have been tortured, with a kind of horrified awe. And quietly we wonder inside, “How can this be?” And, “Could this ever happen to me?”
I love this story! Peter was sitting between two guards and suddenly an angel of the Lord comes to him and frees him — and he thinks it’s a vision! He’s not sure if he truly believes it.
“Exhausted but still in pursuit…” Well, now we know why the angel of YHVH addressed Gideon the way he did. With his small three hundred man army he had just decimated the army of Midian — but the victory wasn’t complete, and so the Jewish general and his small, exhausted, hungry, band were determined to cross the Jordan and take care of 15,000 additional Midanite enemies and their leaders, Zebah and Zalmunna.