I think Mark 12 and Romans 12 compliment one another very well. Throughout Mark 12 Jesus is bantering back and forth with Pharisees and Sadducees (Remember, they are "Sad you see" because they don't believe in the resurrection)...they try to trap him to get the people to turn against him, and he skillfully disarms every one of their arguments by pointing them towards spiritual realities that escape them. One of the Jewish mean that hears Jesus great wisdom asks him, "What is the greatest commandment?" Jesus answers by quoting the Shema, "Love the Lord you God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength." He also follows up with the natural next step for godly relational living, "And love your neighbor as yourself." If you do everything you can to live for those two things, you are following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. In two shorts sentences, Jesus shows us what it is all about. People like to say that Christianity has all these rules...that God is trying to weigh us down with regulation after regulation...with a huge heavenly "don't do" list...but in reality, there are only two rules. God has called humanity to do two things - love God and love people. You do those things and everything else falls into place.
In fact, those two things are the secret to becoming the living sacrifices that Paul tells us to be in Romans chapter 12. If we put God and others before ourselves, we will be living sacrificially...we will be living in the way of eternity...living in the way of God. When you put God and others before you, the things that blind and distract us...the jealousy, the fear, the boredom, the selfishness...these things disappear and we are able to see what truly matters in life. We are able to, as Paul promises, discern the will of God - understanding what is good and acceptable. Living for God and others allows us to see the great value of our brothers and sisters in Christ...it allows us to joyfully function as one small part of the body of Christ...doing what we can with the gifts we have been given to expand God's Kingdom, while celebrating the contributions that others make. Paul even finishes out chapter 12 of Romans by giving us a list of what life looks like when we choose to live first for God and then for others. His finally paragraph is a rapid-fire list of what a God and neighbor loving human being looks like. Review the list...ask yourself, "Is this a picture of my life?" If not, what needs to change? What needs to shift in your life so that you can love God with everything you have and love your neighbor as yourself?
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