Hello

Jesus said that loving God is the most important thing his followers are to do:

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”  Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'” (Mark 12:28-30.  See also Matthew 22:35-38; Luke 10:25-28).

In answering the scribe’s question, Jesus is referring to a command in the Old Testament law:

“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:5).

What does it mean to love our loving Father with all our heart, soul, mind and strength?  What does loving God look like?  Perhaps a good way to answer this is to ask another question: “What does loving another person look like?”  If we love someone, we want to spend time with them because we really love being with them and we love listening to what they say to us.  Those of us who are fortunate enough to be parents get this.  A good parent loves to hear their child talking to them.  Our love relationship with our loving Father should be that of a trusting child with a loving parent.  Our loving Father loves to spend time with us and loves to listen to us.  If we love him we will love to spend time with him and love to listen to him, however he chooses to speak to us.

I think that loving and serving our loving Father are logical things to do.  If I truly believe that he exists, and that he loves me, then the only logical thing to do is to say, in my heart, “OK Father.  I want to be what you want me to be.  I want to do what you want me to do.”  It makes no sense for me to claim to be a servant of the creator and ruler of the whole universe and then to follow my own desires and ambitions.  I often think there is only one bottom-line prayer for someone who truly seeks to love and serve our loving God, and that prayer is “Your will be done”, as Jesus taught us to pray and as he prayed himself (Matthew 6:10; Matthew 26:42).

When we love our loving Father and commit ourselves to his service, he will give us things to do.  He will give us work to do that will benefit him and his purposes.  This work will also benefit us and and benefit the rest of the human race.  This work will be part of the coming of his kingdom.  But let me say a word of warning.   Doing the things he wants us to do is not the same as loving him, and we must be careful not to let those things we do become more important to us than loving him.  This is particularly important for those of us who hold positions of responsibility in churches or Christian organizations, especially paid positions.  Loving our loving Father must come first, because Jesus said so, and the things we do for our loving Father must be, and can only be, the result of our love for him.  To put it another way, the things we do for him must flow out of our love for him.  We obey him because we love him, as Jesus did.

 “but I do as the Father has commanded me, so the world may know that I love the Father.”  (John 14:31)

Can we talk about ‘holiness’ for a moment?  It may be an unfashionable word, but it is important.  Something that is holy is something that is set apart for our loving Father’s service.  If we love him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength then we are, unquestionably, setting ourselves apart for his service.  That means we are seeking holiness.  I’ve seen many Christians who are so busy doing things they don’t spend much time with our loving Father.  I’ve seen too many of these people moving away from holiness towards busyness and too many of these people are in positions of responsibility in churches and Christian organizations.   The first and greatest commandment is that we should love our loving Father.  The devil loves to see intelligent, thoughtful, capable Christians being too busy to spend time loving God.

Busyness is the enemy of holiness.

Loving our loving Father means spending time with him.  And that means spending time in prayer.  Prayer is not just talking to him; it is also listening to him.  Prayer, for me, at its deepest and best, is being in a state of communion with him.

Here’s an odd thing.  I’ve known that “Love the Lord your God” is the first and most important commandment since I was about 10 years old.  But it wasn’t until I was in my 60s that I first told our loving Father that I loved him.

 

May our loving Father bless us and keep us close to him.

Jesus is Lord.

Peter O

 

 

Related Articles

“Loving God – the Good Parent” 

“What did Jesus say about obeying God?”

“Taking my feet off the ground – Learning to trust our heavenly Father”

“What did Jesus say about prayer?”

“What did Jesus say about prayer – (Part 2)”

“What does Jesus want his followers to do?”

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