Loving the Lord

This morning I want to conclude our series on love by talking about Loving the Lord!

We spoke of loving our spouses, friends, families, and not loving money, but the root of our ability to truly love anyone is when we learn to LOVE THE LORD!!!

It seems easier to love people we can see, talk to face to face, and tangibly even feel - but the reality is, until we LOVE GOD we cannot truly express HIS love to others - the agapeis love that the Bible talks of.

Mark 12:28–34 NLT

28 One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” 29 Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. 30 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ 31 The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.” 32 The teacher of religious law replied, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth by saying that there is only one God and no other. 33 And I know it is important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. This is more important than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law.” 34 Realizing how much the man understood, Jesus said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions.

Let’s get some background on this event.

Jesus has been hounded with questions by Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees - all in an attempt to cause his answers to lose favor with the crowds and people He had been influencing.

The man who approaches him now was at the request of Pharisees, we cannot assume this was an impartial curiosity on his part although perhaps his actual question was motivated by how Jesus had answered the others.

There was much debate in the religious community over which command was greatest, which one more important than another, or had more weight/ authority to it. There were over 600 commands the Religious leaders instructed in - a majority of things not to do rather than what to do ---

Jesus answer takes the importance of the greatest commandment to a HEART ISSUE of MOTIVATION

It is not about just the right behavior but for a wrong reason, or motivation...

He deals with what is inside of us, and what has to come first for the rest to be even possible!

You must LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD with ALL your heart, soul, mind and strength! He adds a second command that is equally important, but not as great, for the second command to love our neighbor as our self is conditional and only possible when the first command is accomplished!

Let’s take a few moments and ask a few questions of ourselves this morning....

1. Do I Love God with My Whole Being?

Hmmm, do I love God with all that is within me???

This fourfold reference to heart, soul, mind and strength is really about loving God first and wholeheartedly more than anything else and with every part of who we are.

Sometimes our intellect can love God, but our physical man does not exemplify that love - we want to love Him - it makes sense to love Him, but when our physical nature kicks in, we love that nature and its desires more than the Lord and succumb to it.

To love the Lord with all your strength is to place your physical man in submissions to that love that wants to HONOR HIM.

The Greek Word for strength here is defined as all that I am capable of doing!!!!

Mind deals with our reasoning and intellect - sometimes we are physically obeying the Lord, but in our head we desire disobedience, our we question Him. In our understanding we have not come to the place of surrender because we do not love and trust Him.

The heart is our seat of emotion and center of our complex being. It is that which feels and motivates from that feeling. WHich is why at times we are moved to love and obey, but others we find it easy to not love and obey but leave our love in a conditional place.

The Soul is our very essence of life and that which gains eternal life - that lives beyond the body...

The greatest command in Scripture to us - is to REALLY LOVE THE LORD with every fiber of being, every part of our human and eternal make up - the seat of our emotion, our eternal man, that which gains understanding and reasoning and our phycial capability to surrender ...

THIS QUESTION GIVES WAY TO THE NEXT....

2. Do I Love God Unconditionally?

Here it is! You see the fourfold part of our being has to be willing to love the Lord for WHO HE IS and not just how He makes us feel, or if it makes sense to us, or for what we have experienced from Him.

You might say, but God is perfect, it should be easy to unconditionally love Him, but is it?

When His perfect WILL and desires keep us from gaining those things WE DESIRE or WANT, when prayer goes unanswered, or we do not understand why He did not intervene like we wanted him to — will we still LOVE HIM UNCONDITIONALLY and SURRENDER TO HIM?

Does he receive our AGAPEIS love?

I think of Mary and Martha when their brother Lazarus died, they questioned Jesus why He didn’t show up sooner and save Lazarus - in their finite minds they were struggling with the plans the Lord had for this situation...

Luke 7:18–23 NLT

18 The disciples of John the Baptist told John about everything Jesus was doing. So John called for two of his disciples, 19 and he sent them to the Lord to ask him, “Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?” 20 John’s two disciples found Jesus and said to him, “John the Baptist sent us to ask, ‘Are you the Messiah we’ve been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?’ ” 21 At that very time, Jesus cured many people of their diseases, illnesses, and evil spirits, and he restored sight to many who were blind. 22 Then he told John’s disciples, “Go back to John and tell him what you have seen and heard—the blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.” 23 And he added, “God blesses those who do not turn away because of me.”

John was seeking to know his life was not in vain preparing the way for Jesus, and that all John had given was in fulfillment of God’s plan...

John would soon be beheaded ---

Jesus does not answer John, but says those who do not turn away because of me are blessed - or those who are not offended by me...

When we serve God and give our all to Him and we do not get an answer that we seek, but still choose to love and obey the Lord rather than take up an offense at Him --- this is unconditional love...

Conditions do not have to be perfect or right, to be an excuse to skew our love...

In our lives there will be seasons, times, requests that we do not get answers to, but will we still LOVE GOD with ALL OF OUR BEING when our human and imperfect conditions are not met???

Love is a two way street — it is easy to love God when He saves us, gives us the desires of our heart, or answers our prayers, when we feel affirmed by His love.... but what about when we don’t - will we turn away???

3. Do I Love God Ritually or Authentically?

The Scribe who came to Jesus and asked this question responds to the TRUTH of Jesus answer, and personally responds that he understands the importance of following this command - even more so than the sacrifices and burnt offerings the law required obedience to...

Jesus recognized His answer and said he was close to the Kingdom of God --- coming into the Kingdom required true motivation to love ---

Today, many follow the rituals of Christianity - don’t get me wrong, there are some things we do that appear ritual, but the only thing that makes them a ritual are when we do them because we have to and not because we choose to because we love the LORD

Motivation for loving God and obeying Him is the difference between ritual obedience without love.

I don’t want hell so I do this, I do this because I am told to do this...

It is not that the things we do are not the right things to do and desired of us, but are they done for the right reasons?

Think of it, when your child stomps off to do the chore they were given it is not the same as when your child willing chooses to do the chore understanding it is an expectation, but joyfully doing it out of love for the family.

Why do you think when we deal with loving God more than our money we look at the verse that tells us to give cheerfully - it refers to motivation.

Where does authentic love for the Lord come from?

SPending time in His presence, His Word and in Prayer --- getting to know Him and who He is and yielding our heart to Him even though it might not always seem easy --- this is a process of authentic love that develops,

just like two people who spend their lives together and love unconditionally because of the time spent in each other’s presence - there is no way around loving the Lord authentically without getting into His presence!

CONCLUSION

So, today, I want to encourage you to LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD with all your HEART, SOUL, MIND and STRENGTH ---

Unconditionally and Authentically

When we come to this place, it creates an outflow to love the others in our lives… we can love because he first loved us!