“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.” Matthew 22:37-38

Jesus is being tested by the Pharisees. The Rabbinic conviction was that all commands were equally great, no matter how small they seem. They want to expose him as a liberal. But Jesus is not worried about that, and he does tell them what the greatest command is – to love God with all your heart, soul and mind. Summarizing God’s will is risky business, but Jesus has the authority to do that, and He does. He says nothing new, but quotes directly from the Old Testament – Deuteronomy 6:5. What is unique is the way he exalts this command, along with love of neighbor, and then fuses them together.

We are to love God with all of who we are. Jesus teaches and models an absolute God-centeredness. The prevailing culture would have us forget God or ignore Him. We are constantly tempted by and drawn toward idolatry – the exalting of other things above God. To love God is to value Him above all other things, to give him exclusive loyalty in our lives as God. He is to be our highest good.

What does it look like to love? When we say we love someone it normally means that we have positive feelings toward them. I think this is also true of our love for God. It is a positive, joyful disposition which overflows with gratitude and praise, awe and wonder. What is commonly referred to as ‘mysticism’ emphasizes a personal union with God, and seeks deeper intimacy with Him. There is a desire to experience an intimate relationship with God, the ‘lover of our soul’. This is a good thing; the ideal is to feel love for Jesus – not merely a dutiful commitment. God is a person to be loved, not just an abstract principal or an idea.

Yet Jesus is clear that love for Him goes beyond feelings. To love God is to obey Him. In John 14:15 Jesus says, “If you love me, you will obey what I command…” The Apostle John says in 1 John 5:3, “This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome…” Love of God looks like obedience. He is the Lord our God, worthy of our absolute loyalty.

The command to love God is a positive command. There are many negative commands in scripture: don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, and so on. But love takes us beyond what we don’t do to what we do. We are to be set apart from sin - there are things we turn away from and don’t do. But to love God is to take the next step and do works of love and righteousness. To love God does not contract our lives but rather expands them. It leads us to a positive life of virtue and action. It is being like Jesus who lived an abundant life among us – a life of love toward God and toward neighbor.

May we as individuals and as a church family grow in our love for God, as we seek to love Him with all of our heart, soul and mind. And let us obey him as our lord and savior.

Pastor Tim, June 17, 2007