The Greatest Commandment: Love God

Traditionally, the passage we are focusing today from Matthew 22:37-40 is called the Great Commandment.

The Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20 was given to the disciples in an intimate setting on a mountain in Galilee just before Jesus ascended into Heaven.

The setting for todays message is in the Sanhedrin where the religious elite of the Jewish faith, the pharisees and sadducees would teach the people and participate in spiritual debate.

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There was an ongoing debate among the Jewish legal experts to prioritize the commandments. Long and exhaustive debates on what laws were considered “light” or “heavy”.

Before verse 37, Jesus had just muzzled the sadducees who didn’t believe in the resurrection. Verse 36 says that the crowds present were astonished at His teaching.

The setting where Jesus taught about the Greatest Command in the law was very public.

In the world of social media that we live in, making hype over something is incredibly simple. Jayton vs Blackwell 2018.

Jesus didn’t have the appearance of home field advantage in this story. The pharisees sent the chief expert of the law to question Jesus.

READ MATTHEW 22:37-40

“What kind of commandment in our law would it be to constitute a great one?”

In total, there are 613 laws.

This was a hotly debated question that the religious leaders had debated over time.

They wanted to know the principle in what constituted a great commandment.

The pharisees hoped to trip Jesus up and humiliate Him or find answers. (Get your popcorn ready!)

“The Greatest and Most Important Commandment”

Today, we will only focus on the 1st commandment Jesus shared. “Love the Lord your god with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” Jesus called this command the greatest and most important command.

Jesus recited Deuteronomy 6:5. To the average Jew, this verse was one of the best known commandments. It was part of the Shema— an ancient prayer recited by the Jews twice every day

The heart, soul, and mind collectively represent the whole person; one should love God with total love and devotion.

The love a person has for the Lord should come for every form of man’s nature.

Heart, soul, and mind are not different “parts” of a man, but different ways of thinking for a man in his relation to God. There is no clear distinction between these parts.

“The” is a definite article. It is a command for the believer. The 3 nouns together indicate the essential nature of man, his ultimate, fundamental loyalty, not just a superficial allegiance.

To Jews sitting through His teaching, Jesus was reciting their version of John 3:16. He was speaking in elementary principles, turning their arguments and debates on their head and bringing them back to “love”.

Love has just become a word in our culture instead of an action. When a female

In scriptures, God defines mans love for Him through obedience and dedication.

John 14:21 - “The one who has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father. And I will love him and disclose myself to Him.

My prayer for every Christian in 2021 is for John 14:21 to be our anthem. That we would look at ways we are disobedient to God and realize that our disobedience reveals our lack of love for God.

What is the main focus of your day? What deserves our attention whenever we wake up in the morning?

Finding a way to love God through our thoughts, words, and actions in ever capacity.

“A Covenantal Love”

Jesus quoted from Deut. 6:5 when he spoke of the greatest commandment to love God.

Deuteronomy is Moses’s farewell teaching to the 2nd generation Israelites.

God was overseeing Israel and Moses gave the conditions to Israel’s relationship with God would function.

God made a covenant promise with Israel to protect them if they would simply trust and obey Him.

“I will protect, govern, guide, sustain, and love you if you will submit to my authority. This is your choice to walk with me or walk away from me.”

The command that God gave Israel was not a demand for the people to manufacture false emotion toward God but truly love Him.

(levau) - heart and (nephesh) - soul do not refer to separate parts of the human person. The terms overlap in meaning conveying our internal life, emotions, and intellect.

“strength” or “might” come from a Hebrew word meaning “exceedingly”. This description of love for Yahweh implies totality; as God is undivided unity and alone worthy of worship, so the Israelites must have undivided loyalty toward Him.

Eastern tradition used a similar word for “love” between a king and his subject. It was a legalistic kind of love.

The biblical term used for love in this passage was much deeper.

Israel’s obedience was not going to spring from a barren legalism based on necessity and duty. It was a arise from a relationship based on love.

Hosea used the same letter in his letter to express the same affection of love between God and Israel, making use from strong metaphors drawn from family life, husband, and wife, (Hos 3:1), Father and Son (Hos. 11:1). Israel was to love God with her whole being.

The expression “with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your strength” is a favorite in Deuteronomy and gives major insight into ancient Hebrew psychology.

The heart was regarded as the seat of the mind and will as well as of a wide range of emotions. The term soul is difficult to define, but it seams to refer to the source of life and vitality of “ones” being. The two terms heart and soul between them indicate that a man is to love God with unreserved devotion. To give more weight to the command, a third expression is added “with all your strength.”

The love of God when reciprocated to Him by man provides a covering...

We don’t buy umbrella’s to keep away the rain. We know it’s going to rain, we just don’t want it to rain on us.

Christians are commanded to love God because loving God and making known to all people is who we were created to be.

I’ve seen too many Christians that love God out of obligation instead of devotion. It’s heartbreaking. To be so close to a full life but so far spiritually.

God is not meant to be served as a “have to”. He ought to be the desire of our heart.

Isaiah 26:8 says , “Yes, Lord, we wait for you in the path of your judgments. Our desire is for your name and renown. “

“desire” - longing or craving

“name” - fame

“renown” - remembrance or memory

Is Gods fame and memory a longing of your heart? Do you crave His presence in your life so much that you will make life adjustments to be closer to Him?

The pharisees were trying trip Jesus up and make Him look like a fool. Instead, Jesus revealed the desire of God for man. He wants us to love Him with unbridled devotion. His love should change our hearts and give us a longing to love others.

We will talk about God’s 2nd command to love our neighbor next week.