Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Who Do You Love Most? | Torah | Leviticus 19

Episode Date: August 10, 2022

We live in a me-obsessed culture, but Jesus calls Christians to live differently. Who is most important in your life? In today's episode, Jensen explores Leviticus 19 to share the greatest commandment. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Leviticus 19 Resources: The Gospel Comes With a House Key by Rosaria Butterfield

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. In her New York Times bestseller, Untamed, Glennon Doyle writes about her transformation into becoming her truest self and living her life to its fullest. She now writes with the hope to help women everywhere, find their voice, and break free from societal constraints. She writes these three ideas in her book Untamed. One, to be brave is to forsake all others to be true to yourself. That is the vow of a confident girl. Two, when a woman finally learns that pleasing the world is impossible,

she becomes free to learn how to please herself. And three, a woman who is full of herself knows and trust herself enough to say and do what must be done. She lets the rest burn. Now, Doyle might be writing specifically to a female audience in her book, but the mantra behind her words, it's born out of a larger cultural movement. In each of these three thoughts, we see a deeper belief holding them up. That belief is the love of self. This very modern belief has given way to movements of self-love and self-care. It underlies lines common phrases like look out for number one put your needs first do what's best for you treat yourself with kindness doyle encourages readers to forsake all others to stop pleasing the world to let the

rest of it burn and in doing so to be true to oneself to please yourself to become full of yourself trusting that you know what you need it sounds encouraging it honestly sounds really enticing because it hits at something we all internally tend to do. We love the idea that we are our own main character, and we spend most of our time focused on me. Now look, I'm not trying to take an outside jab at our cultural moment. I am almost always the first person I think about when I wake up and the last one on my mind as I go to sleep.

My problems are the most important problems to me. I come to my defense more than anyone else's. If I'm fighting for anyone or providing for the needs of someone, that person is most often me. I'm just as me obsessed as the next person. And some of that, it's natural, right? I have to take care of my needs. I have to make sure I get rest and food. I have to try and fix my problems.

But I've seen my love of self so quickly take. take on an ugly head. I've seen my inward focus cause tension in my marriage when I think my needs are more important than my husbands. My desire to be comfortable and happy came head to head with my newborn's desire to be fed every two hours and held all day long. And that thought in my head, the thought that I should look out for myself, that my needs are most important, that I should be my main focus, that thought created frustration at a tiny baby. What is that? Maybe you see this in yourself as well. I find it really easy to point the finger at other people's inward focus. But coming to turns with my own selfish heart, well, that just isn't as easy. It's easier to point

the finger, to blame, to say, how dare they do that to me? How dare they not care for my needs, not see my perspective, not help me fix my problems, when really I'm just as guilty of doing the same thing. It's the harsh reality that at my core, my selfish heart wants to protect, provide for, and love me first and foremost. This tendency runs deep in all of us, and it makes God's words in Leviticus 1918 an incredibly high call on our lives. Verse 18, do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. Love your neighbor as yourself.

This is so difficult because our default is, to want to love ourselves, to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, to provide for our needs generously, to care for our pain, to protect our lives. And now, now we're being called to love our neighbors, not just love them by being a nice person and not yelling at the people around us, but by loving them the way that we are inclined to love ourselves. To give your neighbors the benefit of the doubt, to provide for their needs generously, to care for their pain like you would your own, to protect their lives. This Old Testament commandment comes in the middle of a long list of commands from the Lord. Commands to not rob your neighbor, to not spread slander, to not endanger

the lives of your neighbor, to not withhold wages from a worker, to not harm the disabled, to not seek revenge, to not hate, to not deceive one another, to not show favoritism, to judge fairly and uphold justice for your neighbors. In verse nine, the Lord commands his people to leave the edges of their fields full of the harvest and to not go back and pick up any grapes they've missed when they first harvest the food. And they do this so that the poor and the foreigner can be fed from their own fields that they worked and cared for throughout the year. God is calling his people to protect, provide for, and love their neighbors with the same zeal and same conviction as they would for themselves. This isn't the only time we see this call on

God's people. In the New Testament, Jesus is asked by a teacher of the law, which commandment is the most important? Jesus replies, the most important one answered Jesus is this. Hear of O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this. Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no command greater than these. Jesus specifically references this verse in Leviticus. He repeats it word for word. It's interesting. Back in Leviticus 19, God continually reminds his people that He is the Lord their God, that they are to be holy to follow these commands because he is holy. They're to follow these commands, to love their neighbor as they love themselves because they know who their God is.

God knows that they can only do these things. They will only be able to do them through His strength and as an outpouring of their love for their own God, Yahweh, the eternal king. the creator of the world. And so it does not surprise us that when Jesus references this verse again, when he calls his followers to the same standard here in Mark, he first says that the most important commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. On our own, left to our own devices, our hearts will protect provide for and love ourselves first. But when we see God for who he is, who he tells us he is in scripture, when we love him first with all of ourselves, we will begin to see the goodness, the joy,

the peace that comes from living a life where we love our neighbors as ourselves. Now you may be asking, who is my neighbor? In Leviticus, many of the commands surrounding the this verse include the whole assembly of Israel, the foreigner, the poor, their immediate families. In the New Testament, when Jesus is asked this same question, he responds with a parable about a man in need, wounded and bleeding on the side of the road. In this parable, a priest and a Levite, holy men, both leave him, walking past him callously. But a Samaritan, an outsider, cares for this man as he would care for himself were he in need. Jesus asked the one who wanted to know who his neighbor was,

which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man? And he replies, the one who had mercy on him. Jesus then told him, go and do likewise. So who is your neighbor? Jesus seems to be opening the door wide. Your neighbors are those placed before you who are in need. Maybe it's a physical need or an emotional need or a spirit. spiritual need, we all need something. As followers of Jesus, we are called to have mercy on our neighbors

and to love them as we would ourselves. If you're looking for a book to read right now and wondering what this could possibly look like in your life, I would challenge you to pick up the gospel comes with a house key by Rosaria Butterfield. She tells the story of how her family has practiced what she calls radically ordinary hospitality in their lives. Her story is challenging and encouraging, but it is one of the clearest pictures of what God can do when we open up our hearts and our lives to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. In a world where we are constantly encouraged and emboldened to protect, provide for, and love ourselves, how refreshing could a generation of Christians be who go out and love all people, all people before them, as they would

themselves. God, would you embolden all of us to love the people you have placed before us as fiercely as we love ourselves? Lord, out of a deep love for you and knowledge of who you are and what you call us to, would we sacrifice our needs to fulfill the needs of the needy? Would you give us empathy for the pain of those in our lives? Would you give us patience to rework our schedules for the benefit of our neighbors? Would you grant us generous hearts to forego fulfilling our wants and desires so that we can provide for the wants and needs of others? God, this goes against our most inward desire to seek our own good. And so we ask that through your spirit, you would give us strength and wisdom to love you and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Amen. Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help encourage you in the middle of the work week and bring you deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.