The Great Discovery

Monday, September 8, 2025

Good morning, Lord

Father in Heaven, I seek You first-the knowledge of Your kingdom and Your righteousness. Fill my consciousness constantly and complete Your joy in me as I take up my cross and follow...In Jesus' name…

Memory verse: Jeremiah 15:19 ESV

Therefore thus says the Lord: “If you return, I will restore you, and you shall stand before me. If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall be as my mouth. They shall turn to you, but you shall not turn to them.” 

Verse of the day: Psalm 143:10

10 “Teach me to do your will,    for you are my God!Let your good Spirit lead me    on level ground!”

Today’s reading: Proverbs 3-5 2 Corinthians 1

The Great Discovery

Matthew 22:37-40 and Mark 12:31 both echo Leviticus 19:18-”Love your neighbor as yourself”. This place of loving our neighbor as much as we love our selves sounds so really hard when we really think about it that we just read it and move on. But what does it mean?

How hard do you work or have you worked for your own happiness? How energetic? How persistent? This is how we are to seek happiness for our neighbor and to many this is threatening.

How do I have time and life to seek for my neighbor what I seek for myself? God offers wisdom for balance-freedom from frustration.

The first commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37), is the basis for the second.

Make God the focus of your life first and the second commandment will become clear. This is our focus today.

Loving God with all you heart means we will find our greatest satisfaction in Him.

Loving God with all our soul means we will find a meaning so deep in God that it fills all our soul down to the deepest hurt.

‘With all our minds’ says that we find in God all the knowledge, insight, and wisdom that satisfies all our minds were meant to be.

When we love God as we should, we love and are excited and joyful about what God is doing in our lives. From this full life, God opens for us a love and energy for our neighbors that we never thought possible.

For some of us this seems a long way off, so it must be a matter of prayer.

Tell God this sounds overwhelming but that you really want to reach this place in your life of loving Him and knowing Him so you can feel His excitement in loving your neighbor.

...because he loves you, He will do it…

Father in Heaven,

I want Your name to be my excitement. I want the wisdom of Your kingdom. I want to want to do Your will. Forgive me for not digging deeply into Your truth. Lead me away from evil.

Father of Joy,

In the name of Christ Jesus,

Amen