Friday, May 12, 2017

The controlling factor


If (since) Jesus’ explanation that “love God and love neighbor” is the thing that should define our lives, does it?  If you put this approach for anything else into place and run it to its logical end, are we being faithful?  For example, if you are a basketball coach, your goal is to train your team to win games.  Sure, there are other aspects of the job, keeping your players healthy, strong, in shape, out of trouble, etc. but all of these things are for the purpose of winning games.
If you are a medical doctor, your main job is to address your patients’ health. Again, there are other aspects to the job, but all of them are for the main purpose of addressing your patients’ health.  So, when we look at our own lives, does “love God and love neighbor” act as the controlling factor?  How we spend our time, how we spend our money, how we act towards and respond to, other people.  Are our lives really just focused on making ourselves comfortable, entertained and well-fed, until we retire, when we can focus even more upon comfort and entertainment?  The form of the entertainment really doesn’t matter if that thing is not an exercise in “loving God and loving neighbor”.  Sure there may be other “benefits” to the entertainment (i.e., relaxation, exercise, mental stimulation, etc), but if that thing is not based on “loving God and loving neighbor”, we are missing the point.

No comments:

Post a Comment