March 18
“And He said to 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 great and foremost commandment.’” (Matthew 22:37-38)
Most of us are familiar with these words from our Lord, highlighting for us what should be our highest pursuit in life, the most important commandment of all of God’s commandments, to love the Lord our God with all of our heart and soul. But in spite of the fact that Jesus boils it down so succinctly for us, knowing we need simple summaries of what to do, this is in my opinion along with delighting in the scriptures and committing time to the study of God’s word, one of the most difficult things to do.
I personally know few Christians who are outwardly manifesting a love for the Lord, a love that is genuine and overflows into a love for others, a love that gets excited about Him and His interests, a love that is deeply concerned about others and the things He is concerned about. Most of the Christians I know love the Lord, no doubt about that, but it is not evident to me that they do. He is not the first thing they talk about, or even the second, or even the third. They seem either excited about worldly pursuits or burdened with the concerns of the hour. Or just plain tired and discouraged.
I very much include myself in these observations as well. All too often I am feeling the weight of my daily to do list and the things that are not going right in my life. It’s like I am waiting for everything to be perfect before I burst out in praise for my wonderful Savior. If someone asks me how I am doing I feel an obligation to either end the discussion by saying “Fine” or go on about the things that aren’t going well. How shortsighted I have become! Does this kind of attitude strike you as being one who loves the Lord with all of his heart, mind, and strength, or one who loves himself so much that he is too preoccupied with his insignificant world to appreciate the incomprehensible gift that He has given us in Christ?
Do we truly understand that if we have Christ we have everything? Do we truly believe that we already have “everything pertaining to life and godliness” and “His precious and magnificent promises” (2 Peter 1:3-4) both for this life as well as the life to come? Do we truly understand what eternal life and escape from hell really mean? Do we truly appreciate the incredible sacrifice Jesus made for each of us personally when He gave Himself to be whipped, beaten, and crucified for us? Or the incomprehensible humility He displayed to even be born as a human being, all for the purpose of redeeming us from the lake of fire? Do we have an inkling of how difficult it must be for the Holy Spirit to indwell us, as many times as we grieve Him and quench Him and ignore His leading and expose ourselves to impurity and evil?
I think that if we don’t every minute explode with praise and thankfulness then we aren’t getting it, and we aren’t understanding what has transpired in the heavenly realm when Jesus saved us and transferred us to His kingdom of light from the kingdom of darkness. We have become “blind or shortsighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins” (2 Peter 1:9) if love and appreciation for God’s work on our behalf doesn’t overwhelm and drown out every concern and every complaint and every pursuit that is not about Him. May God fill us with this passion and perspective, and may we ever rekindle a blazing love for Him, no matter how difficult our circumstances may seem.