Living a clutter-free and focused life enables us to pursue the things that really matter. However, we can only live that way when we know the things that really matter – the things that we should live for. Do you know what you should live for?

What really matters

The Lord Jesus simplified life for us by telling us what really matters. He said in Matthew 22:37-40:

" 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."

Jesus simply said the totality of the Old Testament hung on these two core truths that we should all live for: to love God above all and to love our neighbours as ourselves. Knowing and understanding this automatically helps us weed out the clutter and the unnecessary things in our lives.

Love God above all

Friends, we are to learn to love God with all that we are. Loving Him is the most important thing that we should be doing, and in fact, it's the only thing we should be doing. We are to love God with all our thoughts, our emotions, our desires, our hopes and our dreams. God should be the centre of everything that we are and all that we do.

When we learn to love God with all that we are, we are given the ability to see and recognise the pursuits we shouldn't be pursuing. We lose our appetites for that which doesn't matter, and the things that are contrary to the life we have in Christ.

Loving our neighbours as ourselves

We also need to learn to love our neighbours. No, not just the people around you, but everybody whom God loves. And we are told how to love them: in the same way we love ourselves.

How we want ourselves to be treated is how we should treat others. When we learn to live with this mindset, we begin to root out behaviors, thoughts and actions that we shouldn't have in relation to others. No more competition, no more envy and jealousy, no more keeping up with the Joneses.

Lif simplified

Friends, life is simplified when we love God above all and let the criteria of love define how we treat others. Love God and live for Him – and life a clutter-free, focused life.