Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Matthew 22:37-39
The foundation of our being starts with love… Love has to be the cornerstone and driving force and that means that you must have a relationship with the Lord… The Bible says that “God is love…” So you are not walking in love if you are not walking in Christ… Make no mistake about it, you are not here by your own doing, but through the love of God… It was the love God has for us that allowed Him to sacrifice His son and pave the road to forgiveness and salvation, it was the love Christ had for us to hang on the cross and go down into the belly of this earth and it is the love that we have for God that keeps us in His will and striving to become more and more like Him… This walk as a Christian calls for a total commitment to the will of God! Jesus is instructing us today through the gospel of Matthew about the foundation that will lead to eternal salvation. True love is formed or born through trials and tribulations… I can always say I love you to someone, but until my love is tested (and grounded in the Lord) you will never know the severity of how much or deep my love goes. A lot of us mistake lust for love and the difference between the two is evident in our commitment to that particular person or thing…
Jesus says that we are to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, soul, and mind! We can’t say we love Him when we feel like it or when He has blessed us and curse Him when things aren’t going as we planned… We can’t throw our hands up in praise for His goodness, and drop our heads in defeat when the storms of life begin to rage… James [Jesus’ Brother] tells us to consider it pure joy when we face trials! Understanding God’s goodness and faithfulness will bring about spiritual freedom and peace that will keep you smiling no matter what task or hurdle lay before you! This is the first and great commandment, we must give God preeminence! He should be on our minds when we wake up [take time to pray], He should be in our thoughts regardless of the circumstances that we face. David slipped up when he saw Bathsheba bathing, Sampson was conquered when Delilah tricked him, and Adam and Eve fell at the hands of the serpent… All the devil needs is a crack to open the floodgates and cause you to drown in sin; this is why we are taught today to love God will all our being… We must first love God with a total commitment to Him before we can take the next step in this verse which is, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself…” A lot of us stumble at the approach of loving people, this happens because we first don’t have a committed relationship with the Lord, and secondly, we really don’t know how to love ourselves let alone love someone else… The reason why we must first Love the Lord is because we have to learn from the greatest example and author of love. In our infancy love means to care for, appreciate and admire someone. We must start there with God (appreciate and admire Him) and allow Him to build upon that definition (developing the highest forms of love). Once we have that relationship with God and he begins to define love more deeply for us, we can learn to love others in ways that will please our Father and set us up to become the individual God designed us to be.
ALL FOR HIS GLORY!
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