Keeping the Top Two Commandments

The top two commandments are to love God and to love others.   See Matthew 22:37-40:  “Jesus said unto him [i.e., a Pharisee — and a lawyer, to boot — asking Him what was “the great commandment in the law”], Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

For what it’s worth, here are a couple of suggestions on how to improve on keeping them.

As to the first, perhaps it’s useful to train yourself to think often of God’s power and glory, and the wonders He works and the benevolence he shows.  Just open your eyes and look around you.

As to the second, again perhaps it’s useful to train yourself to think often of, this time, the good that people you know are doing.  Give it some creative and charitable thought.  Conversely, the one thing you should not do is dwell on the bad things that others have done.  I know it’s easy to do that — especially when those bad things have hurt you.  And the fact is that we humans will stew about the evil another person does, even when we don’t know he has done it or just think that he might do it!