Who's Number One?

[Something I found on the internet on Who's Number One? http://www.sermoncloud.com/pastors-edge/whos-number-one]

Matthew 22:37-39 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. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

Before we get into the first commandment, you need to understand that these laws were not given to the Nation of Israel as rules for a relationship with God. These laws were given as a reflection of a relationship with God. You don't keep the Ten Commandments in order to have a relationship with God; you keep them because you do have a relationship with God. The Ten Commandments are not rules for religious people; they are guidelines for God's people. They were meant for God's family.

As our sons began to grow up, we established certain rules in our home: do your homework, don't talk back to your mother, make your bed, and be home on time. I did not give these rules to my kids so they would be my kids; I gave these rules, because they were my kids. These rules simply reflected how I wanted my kids to behave.

Now you will see why the first commandment is not only the first commandment, but it is foundational to the other nine, because if you don't get the first one you will never get the other ones. In the first commandment, God is not saying, "If you want to have a relationship with Me, this is what you have to do." He was saying, "If you have a relationship with Me, this is what you want to do." The first commandment forces us to answer the question, "Who's Number One?"

[It's like God is saying, I did not ask you to love me so that you will be a lover of God. I commanded you to love me because you are a lover of God! So the first commandment is about our identity as a lover of God!]