Discipleship and the Greatest Commandment

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Discipleship and the Greatest Commandment Disciples today can put into practise the "Greatest Commandment". This

is that of "Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul,

with all your mind, and with all your strength", and the second part

being "Love your neighbour as you love yourself". Of course modern day

disciples like monks and nuns can do this. They spend their entire

lives loving God, worshipping God with all their strength. They don't

have jobs to go to, families to look after, houses to run. It is much

harder for Christians to put into practise this commandment, though

loving the Lord, yourself and your neighbour is obviously a good aim

and something everybody should try to do. Although loving God with all

your mind, soul and strength isn't possible for Christians all of the

time, taking a certain amount of time a day or a week to dedicate to

God would be making great use of such a commandment. To "take up and

carry the cross" you need to live your life according to God and treat

him as another human being, as a companion.

To be a modern day disciple, you need to, as the first disciples did,

suffer. There are costs and rewards, and the costs of dropping

everything to follow your faith as a monk would do, that means

suffering occurs in the form of no luxuries, no entertainment, no

communications, no sex, no relationships with the opposite sex, and

total obedience. But then reflecting that, the satisfaction a monk

must get from what he does must simply overcome all the things we

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