Mark 12:28-34
The Greatest Commandment
28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
29 “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 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: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
32 “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.
God is LOVE...And Jesus tells us to be Perfect like God is Perfect...And Jesus showed His LOVE and care for children, when His Disciples tried to keep them away...So we are to love God and to love all of our neighbors, each and everyone of them...This brings harmony to the world...
When we are born and we are made in God's Image...And since God is involved, we know that LOVE is involved when we are born...God wants families and those raising children to be loving parents and loving caretakers of His children...Since God is LOVE, LOVE is the Principle of Existence, and its only end...LOVE is our Alpha and Omega...Sometimes there is a sad disruption of love in some, if not many, cases...When a baby child or toddler is hurt or abused or neglected and love is not involved by the parent or the caretaker a young girls or a young boy's development gets hindered and they become further from love and somehow further from God, because of this disruption of love -and this lack of love...Sometimes this lack of love and nurturing is not even known by the parent...For example, if the caretaker is under the influence of something or the parents themselves were not cared for and loved when they were toddlers and children, they might even know what is happening to their child or children...Some parents abandon their child or children and they have this abandonment and neglect issue...And some parents may not even think about the harm their leaving has to a child...Some parents may have a frequent tendency to yell and argue, and this can cause problems for a child, if love is not followed up by one or both of the parents...
God is desperately seeking us and wants us to follow Him and to Trust Him, and to bring us comfort...Jesus tells us do not let your hearts be troubled...Believe in God; believe also in Him...This comforting statement is just as much for children when they are seeking their parent's comfort, seeking to follow them, and to trust them...Children need comforting, because early on they cannot speak to tell their parents what they need, so love must be a priority in a child's rearing...Children need the ability to feel love and safety and trust from their parents...They need this comfort...It is so important...Neglect is not near comforting...
Our parents are to teach their children about our Father...We are to train up a child in The Way of Jesus as The Way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from The Way of he LORD...Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the LORD."...These verses specifically addresses parents, urging them to raise their children according to God's teachings...They emphasize the importance of instilling values and beliefs in children from a very young age, including teachings about the Father and is Son...
Just a few years ago the parenting of each of us and the lack of love in our early years, this neglect of love, the harm that is done to children, and what happened to children in unloving environments was not studied...There is a presumption that parents naturally and commonly love their children...Now they have learned that this lack of love, this neglect of love, and harm done to children have caused an inability to have and show love by unloved children...They lose their ability to love as children and this stays with them as they age unless they get help from others to learn how to feel safe, feel comfort, and get themselves regulated...
These children who have had a lack of love, lack of nurturing, and neglected of love are hungry, even desperate for love, and hungry for learning, but the improper brain development due to the this lack of love tragedy and chaos in the early years of life, during which their brains were literally developing quickly, resonates from not only their early years but also to their elderly years if not treated...
As Jesus teaches us that we are to love others as we want to be treated is especially true in children...We are to treat others the way we want to be treated, so we can make many friends and neighbors...The Golden Rule shows its true importance in non-loving and dysfunctional families...Our children need to be loved so they can lead a full life, without being very much being hamstrung with early childhood problems, constant worries and mood behavior symptoms that never seem to leave one's life...
When Jesus teaches us the Greatest Commandment, we can very much see that belonging and love are the foundation to life...We are to love God and to love neighbor...We are to love everyone, including our children...We see how Jesus has forever tied God and man together...Belonging and love are the core of finding the LOVE of God...Belonging in a fellowship and community and love with your neighbors are much needed by toddlers and children, as well as all men and women...Belonging and love are the foundation to the human experience on earth...This starts with a loving fellowship and relationship with our Father and all of our neighbors...Sometimes I think we forget this Great Commandment, because of our sinful nature...
Love and helping others depends on our ability to see the world from Jesus' point of view...And this starts with our brain seeing and imitating and longing in seeking our parent's love, following our parents, and trusting our parents and wanting to be like them and mirroring them...What we experience as religious, moral and ethical choices in life all begins with what our brains are capable of...When love is neglected in our childhood, we get hamstrung in our earliest of years and we develop outside of love...The foundation of trust is gone and our relationships with God and neighbor become out of sorts...The foundation of trust, which is necessary for the successful functioning of everything from relationships with God, to families, to neighbors, to communities become dysfunctional and out of sorts...This is because all of the relationships of love are lost and confused of what love really is...
The heart which is the Spiritual Center of the body and mind in each of us gets messed us and hurt us in seeking the Father and Son, when love is not there...We don't manage as well in our relationships when we have this disruption of love...We need love to lead an abundant life...But this is much more difficult if there is a disruption of love and this early lack of love and neglect of love happens...Jesus has made us relationship creatures that need love and it is proven when God created Adam...God saw that is was not good for Adam to be alone...So He created Eve for Adam...So we need this connection to others, in a most important Loving Way, as God intended...