The greatest commands are to love God and love others.

This is Bible 101.

Yet, we fail at this over and over; especially the second one.

I should say, I fail at this over and over ...

Sometimes we think we just need to try harder and get more serious in order to do this.

I wonder if instead, we need to drink in more of God's grace for ourselves in order to be a better lover of neighbor.

Listen to this:

"God reminds us again and again that things between he and us are forever fixed.

They are the rendezvous points where God declares to us concretely that the debt has been paid, the ledger put away, and that everything we need, in Christ we already possess.

This re-convincing produces humility, because we realize that our needs are fulfilled.

We don't have to worry about ourselves anymore.

This in turn frees us to stop looking out for what we think we need and liberates us to love our neighbor by looking out for what they need."

(Tullian Tchividjian)

The more fully we allow ourselves to sink into the unearned Good News of God's grace for us, the more we will be able to live into his command to love our  neighbors as we love ourselves.

Isn't that cool how those two things are inextricably linked?