Jesus said unto him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. Matthew 22:37-38
The purpose of God sending the commandment is to strike us in the heart like an arrow to convince us that we have not loved Him with all our hearts, and then to form within us the desire to love Him with all our hearts. The significance of this being the first and greatest command means that this is the most important issue you will ever have to face in this life, and it will always be the central, predominant and preeminent issue in your life, before anything and everything else in its importance: Do you love Him?
We should acknowledge that He first loved us with all His heart. He gave His all for us, His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. So, He is not asking us to do anything which He has not already done for us. The command is sent to draw us deeper into considering the One who gave it. Who is this God who requires that all men love Him with all their hearts? On what basis does He make such a great demand and is He right to demand it? And if He requires all our heart then surely He gives us the ability to give Him all that He requires and all that is due Him? It’s perfectly reasonable we respond to this infinite love by which we have been loved, which we have believed and received and return it back to Him. Not in a half measure. Not a half-hearted response. We should love Him with all our heart and not with half our heart. Not with half our intellect or half our feelings and emotions, or half our energy, but with ALL.
When we stand before Jesus and His Father in Glory then we will fully realize that God was right and just and kind in sending the command that we love Him with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind.
Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that you love the LORD your God. Joshua 23:11
The main thing we should be concerned about and the main point of consideration in our daily living should be whether we love the Father in heaven and Jesus Christ His Son with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. This concern should take preeminence over every other consideration in our life and even over the second command, that we love our neighbor. Let me be most concerned with this greatest command and then I will fulfill the second command as a natural outcome of the first. This love for God should define our life and put everything else into its proper context and place, priority and importance and be the power that drives our engine, and be the context of our faith and action.
We love Him, because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19
That you may love the LORD your God, and that you may obey His voice, and that you may cleave unto Him: for He is your life, and the length of your days: that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore unto your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. Deut. 30:20
We are not only called to believe on the Lord Jesus but we are called to LOVE Him. We believe in Jesus, but how much do we love Him?
This material is copyright Ian Vincent and used by permission. Check out Ian’s blog here.