Deuteronomy 6 Love Your God
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— Let’s pray:
O Lord our God, your Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Give us grace to receive your truth in faith and love, that we may be obedient to your will and live always for your glory; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen
These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 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. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
This is the word of God, for the people of God, Thanks be to God!
Introduction:
Introduction:
So as most of y’all know, My wife ,Gabby, and I got married in January. And it really has been just absolutely amazing getting to share my life with her every day… But really and truly I don’t know how Gabby deals with having to be around me this much — I mean I think that I’m fun all the time which means that I’m fairly weird and annoying at least some of the time… But I’ll tell you I know she puts up with me when I’m weird and annoying because she loves me. And when we got married we promised to love and cherish each other for the rest of our lives.
— and of course that sounds nice, right? These are pretty standard wedding vows, but we have to ask what it means? What does it mean to love? — Because often times we are pretty quick to gloss over this. And we have to ask what is love? What does it mean to love? And why does it matter so much?
— And at surface level, you probably are wondering why it matters so much… “Love” has to be one of the more universal concepts but yet it also seems so mysterious and challenging…
But we need to understand that love is at the heart of what it means to be Christian… Deuteronomy 6:4-5 says
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
And in the Gospel of Matthew 22:36-40 it says
“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.”
So the command to love God is literally the greatest command we have as Christians.
And its so important because the love for God is the proper response to God’s love for us!
—> 1 John 4:19 says
We love because he first loved us.
—> And Deuteronomy 7:7-9 says
The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.
— You see God’s perfect love for us commands a response of perfect love!
But again, if we want to respond to God’s love in love we need to ask, what is love?
— According to 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
We are often so quick to identify love as some sort of emotion that we feel but it’s not simply something we feel, it’s something we choose!
— We express our love for God through our delight in worship for him! — This is why we worship, because we encounter God as we lift our praises and lamentations to him, its a big way that we can express our love for the Lord!! — So when we worship, don’t just stick your hands in your pockets and wait for it to be over! come into the presence of God and express your wholly devoted love to the God of the universe!!
— We show our love for God by delighting in His word! Jeremiah 15:16 says
When your words came, I ate them;
they were my joy and my heart’s delight,
for I bear your name,
Lord God Almighty.
— Our love for God is also expressed through our obedience Psalm 40:8 says
I desire to do your will, my God;
your law is within my heart.”
our obedience to God reflects our love for God. Because of our love for God it is only natural that we want to do his will. It’s not a burden. It’s a wonderful privilege!
+ And your love for God should shape your life! Deuteronomy 6:6-9, that we read earlier says
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 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. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your strength… with all your heart and all your strength… and this command is supposed to be on your minds and in your hearts all the time everywhere you go.
So ask yourself, is your life shaped by your love for God? or do you find that God is secondary to everything else? Love God with every ounce of your heart and with absolutely all of your might, and do not accept anything less than that!
friends, the God that created the universe, that spoke the mountains, the oceans, and the cosmos into existence, became flesh and died for you. We no longer are subject to death and destruction, because in God’s perfect love we experience the gift of grace and mercy. We experience salvation and eternal life! Not because you are good or because you have earned it, but because he loves you unconditionally!
Because God loved us and reconciled us into relationship with him, the rest of our lives should be lived in faithful devotion to him.
step into the life and love that you were created for!
+Let’s pray:
