have so little from Jesus about Jesus. He lost Himself in devotion to God. Long before his execution on the cross, he lost his life. Thus be became—to our bafflement—an incarnation of the saying “He who would save his life must lose it.”
He talked about our obligation to love God, not about God’s love for us. The First Commandment is the central focus of his teaching. And because he had integrity, he talked about that and the second, derivative commandment and not about himself. Love of God came first; love of neighbor followed.
Because of the consistency of this priority in his message, it is difficult to cast his mantle over the current exhortation to find yourself first. The pagan Greeks had a word for it (Gnothi seauton), but the good news of Jesus Christ does not. The Gnostics rejoiced in finding themselves, but the majority of Christians would have none of it as the prime quest. For them, as for their Lord, the primal quest was to find God.3
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