One of the consistent messages of the gospel is the need for your actions to match your true intentions. What you do reveals who you really are, and if you’re a person of faith, how you live should reflect that reality. It’s easy to hide behind words; they can conceal your motivations and make you appear to be someone you’re not. Hence the gospels’ deemphasizing of outer ritual and emphasizing of inner faith.

The old parlor game asks: If you knew you were going to die tonight, what would you do today? Variations abound. If you found out you had an incurable disease, which decisions would you make now that you’ve been putting off?

Like the people in Jesus’ time, we have heard the commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength many times. The question is: “What does that mean exactly?” In the midst of commuting to and from work, working, preparing meals, raking the lawn, putting up storm windows (if anyone does that anymore), what would our lives look like if we were even partially successful at following this commandment? 

Through the sacrifice of God’s Son, Jesus, our sins are forgiven. We turn now to God for that forgiveness.

"You are not far from the kingdom of God.” We tend to think of “scribes” as the people who, before the printing press, reproduced texts by copying them. In the ancient world they did that and more. Scribes had an ability few of their contemporaries shared: They could read and write.

“The Ten Commandments are not multiple choice,” a church sign stated. Admittedly we sometimes do pick and choose among them, nonchalantly passing over ones that hit too close to home. But most of the time it may be that we just haven’t thought through how they apply to our own experience.

The central mantra of the Jewish people is “Hear, O Israel.” Listen. The command implies that still one can hear, that the revelation is still happening. —Michael Lerner, Jewish Renewal