“Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart” — Christ Jesus (Mark 12 : 30)
“And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” — Mark 12 : 30, 31
What does this mean, practically?
Since God is not some super-powered being somewhere that we need to personally please or think of, we need to understand exactly what these verses are asking of us.
Keeping in thought the synonyms of God that Mrs. Eddy gave us in Science and Health — namely, Truth, Love, Life, Spirit, Soul, Principle, and Mind — we can see that the only way to obey the first commandment is to never allow ourselves to accept that which is untrue can ever override Truth, or to allow ourselves to pretend that being hateful is loving or to feel that our God, who literally is Love, is actually capable of hating anyone or of giving up on anyone.
If you feel that life experiences are pushing you to give up on Truth or Love, or to act contrary to them, then that is why it says, “with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” There is no guarantee this will be easy. This is why Galatians 5 : 22, 23 says, “...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Each of those qualities will be expressed as we truly live by these two commandments.
We all know that nothing pushes our buttons like other people. Can we hate others and be longsuffering? Can we “love thy neighbour as thyself” and still hate them? Let us remember Matthew 18 : 21, 22: “Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” When people annoy you forgive them, and do not forget to model the love and compassion of the Christ to them, as they may never have seen it in action before.
Speaking of “love thy neighbour as thyself”
An important part of this is that you aren't just trying to act like someone you know who you feeling is kind and loving. You wouldn't have been put here is you didn't have genuine value to add all on your own. Love your neighbor as yourself to me means, at least partially, that I create this website and try to share the good I have recieved. It will mean something else to you, but yours is not greater or less than mine.