The foundation of the commandments is simple and best stated by Christ in the following scriptures:
Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Matthew 22:36-40
34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. John 13:34-35
So the foundation that all the commandments and all the prophets hang on is love of God and all His children. And the one and only commandment Christ gave us was to love one another as He loves us.
But in practice it doesn't always seem so simple. But the more we love, the more we lend an ear or lend a hand then the easier and more natural loving others becomes.
My Dad is schizophrenic so from an early age I was his care giver. Id make him meals or make sure he ate, do dishes make his bed and do minimal house cleaning and take out the trash.
And I was rarely recognized for these things. But the point is that by doing these things my Dads life was more comfortable and better.
And that is how service is meant to be, selfless. Don't let the right hand know what the left is doing. Do the right thing because it's the right thing to do instead of pursuing reward or avoiding punishment.
Righteousness is its own reward.
The way Christ loved is what gave His teachings power. And those teachings were all about how we should live our lives. If we were more like Christ we would have a similar impact on others.
Christ never held a public office, He was no Earthly King, He wrote no books or plays, He led no military yet He single handedly changed world history. And He did it one leper, one adulteress, one blind man at a time.
Were we to walk as Christ walked, if we walked the path Christ did we would be as loving and understanding and so much more and we would be like Christ and we would each have a similar impact as Christ. We would have a very real and lasting impact on those around us one homeless man, one drug user/dealer, one gangster, or any other type of sinner one may think of, at a time.
We may consider certain people as unsaveable or undesirable but God values all His children. He loves us all.
"For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." John 3:17
If Christ didn't come to condemn but to save us then who are any of us to condemn? If we are to walk the same path as Christ then we must try to save those who are struggling. And preaching the Gospel may help but preaching is not as powerful or meaningful as living the Gospel is. And that entails much more than most of us are comfortable with.
We must build up the Kingdom of God on Earth as it is in Heaven one person at a time. One beggar, one leper, one stripper, one sinner of any kind but we must make the most of the chance to love those who enter our lives.
If we attempt to drive out the darkness in others we must use the light from within us and if we want to drive out the hate of others out we must use the love within us because only light can drive out darkness and only love can drive out hate.
