Services every Sunday at 7:00 P.M.

"First Things First" Mark 12:28-34 10/29/06

If you could pick a part of scripture as your guideline of how to live your life tonight scripture would be a good choose. If we all loved the Lord with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our strength and our neighbor as ourselves what a different world we would live in. I want to invite you to picture what your life and our world would look like.

Let's begin at the end of this scripture. "The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself." In order to love God, in order to love our neighbor we must begin by loving ourselves. And maybe even a step before that -- we must accept the love God has for us. So many of us begin our journey back to God by coming to accept the love God has for us. Many of us were the prodigal sons, the prodigal daughters who left the church because people told us God didn't love us. Or we stayed in the church trying to find our place but many times feeling like an exile in our own faith community. When we came back to God we found that God had always been there running down the road to meet us and inviting us back to the banquet table, putting the royal purple robe on our shoulders, and calling us beloved. When we began to accept God's love the door of the closet was cracked ever so much for us to begin to love ourselves. The guilt, the shame, the time of loneliness, and isolation began to melt away. Yes, we are good, loving, compassionate, caring people. Yes, God made me just as I am. Yes, I am an awesome child of the Creator. Yes, I belong... no one again can ever separate me from the love of my God. We could get a glimmer of our holiness, that we are created in the image of our Maker. We began to feel good about ourselves, we began to feel worthy, and accepted. I want you to think for a moment when that happened for you. Who helped you on that journey? A friend, a counselor, this church? For me it was sitting with 5 or 6 other people in the early days of MCC Pittsburgh. I owe my life to God, those people, and the pastor for giving me a new life. I was talking to our Board this week and said how MCC runs through my veins, and I can't imagine not being involved in the church and being here every Sunday for worship. God has to be first in my life; then everything else falls into perspective.

Which takes me back to the great commandment. "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." This is our life-long journey as a people of faith: learning to love our God with our whole being. It affects everything we do, everything we say, how we use our time, talents, financial resources. It impacts how we date, whom we choose as life partners, how we raise our children. First things first. When God is first in our life we are living in the realm of God. We are in the best relationship possible. It is a humble experience to realize that the Creator of all of life has chosen us, wants to be in relationship with us, cares about us. And what we do out of a sense of love is to give our lives back to God, putting God first in our lives to be used for God's honor and glory. There is no greater calling, no more important life's work than this... to love God with our whole being. And God has chosen us for this job. Now, some days we are better at it than other days. We are sure some days that God is at the center of our lives, and on other days we slip and fall and put ourselves first. Fortunately, we have a life time to work at it. And the more we love God the better we get at the daily working out of that love.

That leads us to the first part of the second great commandment "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Is that the person next door, your best friend, the stranger half-way across the world?... the answer is yes. We are all neighbors in this journey we call life. Imagine a world where we loved everyone else as much as we love ourselves. There would be no dividing lines between ethnic groups, no poverty, war. Imagine how different our world would be if we care for one another with the same care God has for us. To love our neighbor means we treat each other with respect and dignity. It means when we make a mistake we make amends and ask for forgiveness. We treat our partners and family members the way we want to be treated. When we're at work or school or in the grocery store we are part of God's presence bringing light and peace to a world in need of repair. When God is first, every aspect of our life is important. There is no such thing as an unimportant day. 24/7 we have the opportunity to serve God as we love our neighbors as ourselves.

Tonight as we go from our time of worship may we be empowered with a renewed sense of God's great love for us. When you feel tired or alone, or can't see the road ahead clearly, know that God's love is there for you. Not a day, not an hour, not a moment goes by that God is not aware of our presence and what's going on in our lives. As we live each day to the fullest may we put God first in our lives. The decisions we make, the words we use, the ways we act reflect the importance of God in our lives. When God is first everything else falls into place. Go about your week loving yourself with God's love and your neighbor as yourself and see the world change around you.

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