Down to 2

I love the NCAA basketball tourney.

In sports, it is one of the top things I look forward to every year.

Being an underdog fan, it's great.

You get a chance to see a team nobody has ever heard of usually taking out a top seed.

The Friday/Saturday start where you get to watch games from 10 a.m. to midnight, it's priceless.

As the tournament progress it gets better and better.

Finally you get down to 2 teams.

It started out at 65 and ends up with one game for the true championship.

It takes weeks upon weeks to end up with the final two.

It's a long journey to start with 65 teams all over the country and end up with just two.

It's a process.

After questioning Jesus (which is just like us) the Pharisees sent an expert in the law to ask Jesus which is the most important commandment.

Their goal was to trick Jesus which hasn't worked up to this point.

This was Jesus response in Matthew 22:37-40…

'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'
This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'
All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

If you are like me you think Jesus just summed up 10 commandments to two sentences.

Honestly it's more like summing up 613.

The Old Testament law has 248 affirmative precepts (As many as the members of the human body) and 365 negative precepts (One for every day of the year) add both these up you get 613.

Jesus quickly responds with this.

He sums up 613 different commandments in 2.

I think the NCAA tourney is amazing how it goes from 65 to 2 and Jesus takes 613 to 2.

This is an amazing feat, the Pharisees based their life on being the best to follow all 613 commandments.

Jesus changes their whole perspective on this.

Jesus has that ability to take everything and make faith understandable.

It's so much easier to remember and follow two commandments rather than 613.

I am so glad Jesus came along.

Not only for summing up the laws but he did even more than that.

He took on the world's sins and mistakes and put it all on him.

The last several days of looking at this scripture, the Pharisees are just trying to trick Jesus.

They are getting very frustrated because they can't answer him.

This leads to a frustration and looking for a way to kill him.

They eventually did kill Jesus even though he did nothing wrong.

This is the process Jesus knew he had to take in order to truly show he is the savior.

What's keeping you from making a deeper commitment in Jesus?

Have a great day.