The mission of 2 Pillars Church is to reach the unreached for Christ and transform the city of Lincoln by loving God and loving people. This is the fifth and final post in this series aimed at unpacking this series.

Why the part about “loving God and loving people”?

When asked what the greatest commandment of all was, Jesus responded with this:

“The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And 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.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

We don’t exist to simply love God.  We don’t exist to simply love people. There is a perfect tension that must be held.  We cannot over-emphasize one and neglect the other.  The two-fold command is singular: love God and love people.  The command is two-fold in the fact that there are two aspects to this command.  It is singular in the fact that loving God with all of our being must include a love for other people.  To love God and to not love people is to not love God.

To love people and to not love God is to love people out of our impure motives – motives of pride, selfishness, comfort, greed, and self-actualization.  We cannot appropriately love others if we do not love God.  It is his Holy Spirit alone who implants a pure and sincere love in our hearts for others.  In building on our love for God and enacting it through loving others we bring glory to God.  The focus of everything that we do on this earth is to glorify God.