October 26, 2025 

Matthew 22:34–40 – When asked which commandment was greatest, Jesus said to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind—and to love your neighbor as yourself.

Devotional:

There’s a reason Jesus called love the greatest commandment. It isn’t just one rule among many—it’s the thread that holds everything together. When the Pharisees asked Him which law mattered most, they were hoping to corner Him into choosing sides. Instead, He went straight to the heart of the matter. Love God. Love your neighbor. Everything else hangs on that.

It sounds simple enough until you try to live it. Because love, the way Jesus defines it, isn’t sentimental or selective. It’s the kind of love that rearranges priorities, interrupts schedules, and refuses to draw lines. It’s the kind that looks like staying when it would be easier to leave, forgiving when it would be fair to hold a grudge, and serving when no one’s watching.

What Jesus is saying is that everything we do in discipleship and outreach—every act of kindness, every prayer, every invitation—is rooted in love. Without it, the rest falls flat. We can have the most polished programs and persuasive words, but if love isn’t driving them, they lose their meaning. When love stops being the foundation, ministry becomes performance and faith turns mechanical.

Jesus knew that the religious leaders of His day had become experts in rules but strangers to compassion. They could quote Scripture with precision, but their hearts had forgotten the reason behind it—to love God fully and to love people faithfully. That’s the kind of love Jesus modeled. He didn’t just talk about love; He embodied it. He loved the sick by touching them, the hungry by feeding them, the outcast by calling them friend, and the sinner by offering forgiveness instead of condemnation. His whole ministry flowed out of love—love that reached high enough to honor God and deep enough to lift others up.

When we root our discipleship and outreach in that kind of love, we stop measuring success by attendance or budgets and start measuring it by transformation—ours and others’. The way we love reveals the way we see God. If our love is narrow, our view of God is too. But when our love grows wide enough to include the difficult, the different, and the undeserving, we begin to reflect the heart of the One who loved us first.

So today, ask yourself: What would it look like to make love the center of everything you do? What would change in your church, your relationships, your routines, if love became the starting point rather than the afterthought?

Action:

Before you begin any task today—no matter how small—pause and ask, “Am I doing this out of love for God and neighbor?” Let that question shape your choices.

Prayer:

Gracious Lord, thank You for reminding me that love is the heart of faith. Teach me to love You with all that I am, and to love others as You have loved me. Strip away anything that distracts or divides. Fill me with compassion that reflects Your own, so that everything I do today flows from love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Thought for the Day:

Everything in the Christian life begins and ends with love.