Mark 12:28-34 ~ Most Important of all

We had a wonderful Sermon today on The First Commandment, which tied so much of the Bible together - we were indeed warp speed.

The Light of God.

Mark 12:28-34

“Which commandment is the most important of all?”

29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

32 And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. 33 And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”



This is an important place to Jesus - being right up next to the Kingdom of God.

At God's Heart.

Jesus is giving us His Name, covering us from our sins.
Bringing us as Worthy as Jesus' own to Father God.
Jesus is delighted with His Father.
And is Bringing us - bought at a tremendously High Price.
Giving to Holy, Holy, Holy Father God a new Kingdom and a new earth.

It's not just the Temple curtain that split. The floor of the Temple split also with earthquake. Jesus is splitting Heaven to toss out Satan. He is suddenly saying earth has no boundaries - all of mankind - is sought to be saved.

Surely this is the Son of God.

This is a very Large God. Perhaps as Large as the Universe. Asking us to present Father God with something all the parables about weddings and invitations is telling us - God would go out on a limb and put us in a life sometimes having High Winds howl. And God is asking us if we - the prodigals - want to give Father God our trust, our love, our heart, our soul, and our mind and will. And here we find the beginning of the Kingdom of God.



Elijah found himself confronting eternity in a cave. Life had gotten very, very serious. And we find God was gentle with Elijah. Not in the howling justification of a false prophet murderer. Elijah was post traumatic stress for what Elijah had witnessed of God's Power. How would Father God comfort Elijah? Of Course God Knew. To speak softly to Elijah's soul.



Moses. Michelangelo got a little Latin as a Second Language Upset. Carving the Statue of Moses. Rays of Light from a man speaking to Father God Himself.

Cecile B. DeMille might never have known God's friend Charlton Heston without the gaffe. Even if people were confused for 500 years - what was Michelangelo thinking??? All things work together for good!

However if God decided Cecile B. DeMille might miss some of Michelangelo's Work
- God might say wonderful and good Cecile B. DeMille might have missed the Elijah moment -
Really fabulous and loving Cecile B. DeMille might have missed - Our God is a Personal God.

Our Father God is God of Love.

Our Father God is God of Encouragement.

Our Father God would call a deaf man aside and make motions so healing was not placed upon him like a Lion.

Our Father God would walk with the blind man to have a quiet moment and put warm living water on his eyes.

Our Father God might send this man quietly sent to the Pool of Siloam to have time to process momentous change.

Our Father God would be such a loving Creator of the entire Universe that when the Blind Man has Jesus' own Living Water upon his eyes. Jesus stays with him to make sure all is understandable, reliable, clear as life floods the formerly quiet senses.

Our God does not just take away deafness, our God stays to see that words are clear.

Our God does not just heal at the Pool of Bethsaida after 38 years and leave. Jesus finds this man with 38 year hoping - to speak with him again.







Where is the Moses Moment ??? I didn't know until Today. Moses says "Not me God, Not me!" And our Father God says, "I will be with you."

Same yesterday, today and tomorrow God of Elijah.

God understands the frailty of mankind. Immortal, steadfast, immovable God understands the fuss, fret, fried, fricassee, fraidy cat. Of mankind encountering God's pretty vast Creation.

Isaiah could See.

Isaiah 43

1 But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel,
"Do not fear,
for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are Mine!

2 "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they will not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched,
Nor will the flame burn you.

3 "For I am the LORD your God, The Holy One of Israel, your Savior"


Jesus understood. Jesus commanded, "Love"

Matthew 28:20
"And teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
And surely I am with you always,
to the very end of the age."









We get things tangled up trying to understand God so Vast and Loving.


Galatians 4

1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.




4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.


Faith is the assurance of the unseen. We have to wade through a lot of life and still believe the work of mankind is to believe God.

We have to believe as we drain the swamp, with this alligator or that one - Father God is God and His Word is God's Word.

This is massive - to believe you are God's... heir. Special. Loved. Chosen. Held in tenderness. Agreeable to God. God is for you.


8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.

Name it and claim it, what seemed important and in ten years, five, a year - is tiddly winks.





9 But now that you have come to know God,
or rather to be known by God,
how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?



We labor to fill our calendars...


10 You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.



And now will we tune out what is meaningful, precious, as smothering, burdensome and weary? Enviable and snide this :


12 Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. 13 You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first,
14 and though my condition was a trial to you,
you did not scorn or despise me,
but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.

15 What then has become of the blessing you felt?

For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me.





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Jesus cried out to those listening to Him, "You Know Me!"

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16 Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?
17 They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them.

18 It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, 19 my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!

20 I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.




Since the days of God walking in the cool of the Garden, mankind has wanted to pick and choose knowledge of good and evil.


21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?

The Law is every Word of God. God does not chit chat. Often. :) However God says tell Me every part of your life and what you need and want. Be thankful for My Replies says God.


The Law tells us to be kind even to the stranger and sojourner. And Abraham saved Isaac (as he should), hoped for encroaching blessings on Ishmael, and wanted us to be quiet about Abraham's second wife Keturah - Genesis 25 - as he sent his own sons by Keturah away.


22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. 24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.


What is mankind You are mindful of him, O God? We make messes and messes. And the story of Genesis says Jesus delights in us as His own.

27 For it is written, "Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor!

For the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband."



28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.


Jesus saw promise in His own Brothers as they mocked Him to go to the Festival.


29 But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit,
so also it is now.


Day after intense day the Pharisees hounded Jesus. Being God, Jesus understood where fear should be placed. Jesus did not fear. He trusted God that if God would know even the Sparrow, all things were going to work out for Good for those who love the Lord and work according to His Purpose. Jesus in the middle of Living Water. feeding the Multitudes, Living the Plan of God was asleep in the storm in the boat. To wake to save easily.


30 But what does the Scripture say? "Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman." 31 So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.


The Work of mankind is to believe God. What is the Word of God? Is this for You and Your daily life? Are you the chaff or the heir?

Most Important of All

The Glory of God is His Love. His Mercy. His Delight. His Tenderness. This is the Prodigal's Father. John saw God and said, "God Is Love." God says Jesus is the Highest of All Names.

Looking to Father God, we can be trusting God. Looking at all the details makes us understand to hold on to our Truth. Even explaining Galatians 4 can make us forget what a loving, loving, loving, tender, tender, tender Jesus we have.

Scripture repeats explaining

God's tenderness

is steadfast love.

Our Abba!

Isaiah 42:5
Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on it And spirit to those who walk in it

We ask for an increase of the Holy Spirit just asking Jesus to pray with us. And Increase of God's Love around the praying world.  Really.

For all who Love God, the Church, her People and Pastors - more communicating with Love.

Our Living God, Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, so also I am sending you.”

When He had said this, He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit."

And more of Your Holy Spirit we receive with Joy. Your Willingness to be with us. Thank You, Abba.


With more of God's Holy Spirit increasing our Hope, we recall with Love those we Love and pray more of God and His blessings for their lives today stretching to Eternity. Infinity and Beyond. The closeness of God to hear our Hope in Him for our needs, health, arms, healing, surgery, and the Joy of God to spread to those we love and pray for.

We end our prayer rejoicing with Father God the prayers of the faithful cover, cover, cover the earth with God daily. Seeing with Father God again the absolute Goodness He sees in His Creation yesterday, today and tomorrow. And we end our prayer with Gratitude for - all of God's Love and Word is True.

And that is our Prayer Plan. And this is a pleasure, You say God is God's Joy - God and to us - His Beloved.

Thank You for Rain in Texas. Reign of God. Your Word is Truth

Amen in Jesus.

♔ Lord Jesus Saves!  †