What would Jeff have said?

I was asked to prepare some scripture readings for Jeff Moore's funeral last Saturday, verses from Jeff's perspective of what he'd want people to know and a few things he might have wanted to share. Here's what I came up with...

Moses to Israel

Deuteronomy 6:1-2 This is the commandment, the rules and regulations, that GOD, your God, commanded me to teach you to live out in the land you're about to cross into to possess. This is so that you'll live in deep reverence before GOD lifelong, observing all his rules and regulations that I'm commanding you, you and your children and your grandchildren, living good long lives. 3 Listen obediently, Israel. Do what you're told so that you'll have a good life, a life of abundance and bounty, just as GOD promised, in a land abounding in milk and honey. 4 Attention, Israel! GOD, our God! GOD the one and only! 5 Love GOD, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that's in you, love him with all you've got! (from "The Message" paraphrase)

Jesus with the religious leaders

Matthew 22:34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

The night before Jesus died

John 13:33"My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. 34"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

John15:9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. … 17This is my command: Love each other.

John 17:20"…I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Many years later by John, one of Jesus' disciples

1 John 4:7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Love God. Love others. It’s real living, full of joy.

Yes it costs, but everything requires some kind of sacrifice – it’s just a question of what you give up in order to get what you want. When you look back on your life, will it be worth it? Love God. Love others.

Or in the immortal words of Bill and Ted: “Be excellent to each other…and party on, dudes!” (This was really in my notes, but there were so many old people there who wouldn't get it I decided to skip it).

We’re here for God and for each other, and for just a short time. Let’s learn to love.