To love

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

TO LOVE

Matt 22:34-40

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

NIV

This is undoubtedly the center of all truth. This is by far the central theme of our faith. This is also the most difficult truth to apply to our lives. It should not be that difficult, however being the flawed human we are, it presents the greatest struggle we face. In order to understand this loving God, we should first understand to love is not a passive, but an active word. It is an action word which we are to be doing. It is a present tense word, which means we cannot say we loved God, or will love God but that in an ongoing present form, we love God. It is not a part-time word, but an all-encompassing full time word. It cannot be shared with anything else. Love cannot be shared with envy, strife, anger, jealously, bitterness, hatred, revenge, malice, contempt, or any of those other words which denote something other than love. It would seem our culture has degraded this word love to a most casual use, tossed around without any real meaning. Yet here Jesus says that we are to love God with all, not some, of our heart, soul and mind. What does that look like? Our heart is the essence of our being, at least which is what it is referred, rather than simply a muscle which pumps our blood. To love God with all our heart would mean that we can compare nothing in this life to him. We should be ready to give up, do, endure or suffer anything in order to please and glorify him. This would mean all our desires, our ambitions, goals, or wants should be set aside or given over to our love for God. To love God with all our soul is our very life itself. We should be willing to give up our life for the pleasure and glorification of God. Although in our culture we are not murdered or tortured as believers are in other parts of the world, we should be willing to suffer that death for the sake of God. Yet it also implies that we give our lives to him, which means we are not our own masters, we are not the captain of our own ship. We do not do, go or seek anything in this life other than by the will of God. This applies to every aspect of our lives, where we live, where we work, where we play, what we do, who we are, and what we say should all be based on the fact we love God. To love God with all our mind has something a little different for us. Jesus was quoting from the Law recorded in Deuteronomy.

Deut 6:4-9

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.   5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

NIV

Matthew does not record that Jesus included Strength, but only mind, the center of our thought processes. However both Luke and Mark indicate Jesus used mind and strength. What we can conclude is the mind controls the strength. The body does nothing without the mind. However that would also imply that not only are we to put God in the forefront of all our thoughts but that our thoughts should be generating the actions of the body which bring glory to God. It is difficult at best to do all this command of Jesus. Our “self” continually gets in the way. When this happens, how do we deal with it? In reality it would mean we are being disobedient and thus should deserve to be punished. However, Jesus took all our punishment on that cross. He took all our sin, all our disobedience upon him as he was perfectly obedient to the Father. Therefore in Christ we are made perfect, yet we still live in this body of disobedience. It is hard to wrap our mind around this. We are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. This is not an option but a command. So then we set our self on that path and make every effort to love him with all of ourselves. When we fail, we seek forgiveness and go on keep trying to live a life pleasing in his sight. The devil would like nothing better for us to give up, defeated, depressed because we cannot perfectly fulfill this command. Yet the command is there and we press on toward that mark, we run the race looking to the finish line. Now when it comes to loving our neighbor as ourselves, this puts a whole different spin on this word love. Here we have to look inward toward how we love ourselves. Yet again this word love cannot share with any other words. We only have to look at Corinthians 13 in order to discover the words it does not share with. But what about self-love? Who despises or hates themselves? Who is jealous or envious of themselves? Who is bitter or unforgiving of themselves? The list goes on. If we look inward as to how affectionate we are toward our own lives then we would understand how we are to love our neighbors. We overlook so much about ourselves and so then should we not overlook so much in our neighbor. We tolerate our mistakes and misbehavior, although we say we don’t. Should we not be tolerant of the mistakes and misbehavior of others? Isn’t that all wrapped up in love? Sure we are supposed to go to the one who offends us, in love. It is all about love. A word that should not be used casually, but with all due respect.