"one of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 'teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?' Jesus replied: '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. and the second is like it: 'love your neighbor as yourself.' all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments."
matthew 22:35-40
matthew gives an account in which we see Jesus being tested again. the lawyer is trying to trip Jesus up, but Jesus outwits them again. instead of picking which law (out of about six hundred or more laws) is the greatest, Jesus answers with what ties all of the laws together. He gives a reason for observing all of the other laws - love for God. he adds to it the second part, loving others. you cannot love God if you do not love your neighbors. they go hand in hand.
one of my favorite verses is very short and simple, 1 john 4:19. "we love because He first loved us." for me it reflects the heart of the Gospel. God loved/loves us first. He loves us so much that He gave us His one and only Son to die so that we might live. (john 3:16) it is only in response to His love that we even begin to love Him. not only are we to love God, but others. it doesn't say "we love God because He first loved us." it simply says, "we love."
the apostle paul often speaks of God's love. romans 8 includes a passage that is very familiar to us. nothing can separate us from the love of God. nothing. in communicating God's love to high school students, we often use this saying: there is nothing you can do to make God love you less, there is nothing you can do to make God love you more. do i always believe that? or do i treat God like other relationships in my life, where i am constantly trying to earn or deserve love?
unfortunately, we have distorted love. i know i have. love usually becomes about me, rather than others and more importantly God. i start out with good intentions - i wanted to show a person the kind of love that, as much as humanly possibly, resembled a Christ-like love. i wanted to offer them an unconditional love that contrasted many of the relationships they knew and expected. but slowly my own selfishness crept in and corrupted any good intentions i initially had. my selfishness - my love of feeling loved - ended up hurting the relationship, hurting others, hurting myself, and hurting God.
nothing i do can make God love me less. nothing can separate me from the love of God. He loves us, first and last. there is a popular song by david crowder called 'how he loves.' a line towards the end says this: "i don't have time to maintains these regrets when i think about the way that He loves us."
Lord, thank you for loving me first. thank you for loving us so much that while we were and are sinners, you died for us. thank you for loving me, despite myself.
No comments:
Post a Comment