Mark 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

To the best of my recollection the first commandment was “Don’t eat.” OK, maybe I went back to far. Perhaps Jesus was talking about the Ten Commandments. No, wait, the first commandment was “I am the LORD thy God yea shall have no gods before me.” Am I confused here or is Jesus wrong?

We didn’t understand “don’t” if we had we would have obeyed. We didn’t understand worshipping false gods or we wouldn’t have done it. So Jesus clarifies what it takes to understand what the Father meant. Jesus is putting clarity to that thing we have demonstrated as not being able to understand. Now we can understand what He meant and obey.

Have we obeyed Jesus with “all”? Are we even capable of obeying mostly much less giving “all”? Well here is the Good News, it was never said again on this side of the Cross. On this side of the Cross we have an advocate that takes our prayers and our less than all obedience of faith and He cleans up the language.

“Father I know what it looks like, but You sent Me down to be human so that We could understand what it feels like to be one of them. I’m telling you it isn’t what it looks like. This is what it means.”

It all boils down to Jesus gave His “all” because He knew we could not. He went from explaining God the Father to us, to explaining us to God the Father.

Romans 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

Thank God for Jesus Christ who understands.