And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment." - Matthew 22:37–38
This is all important. According to Jesus, there is nothing more paramount to human life than for an individual to learn to love God with everything they have. The heart, the soul, the mind, and even the strength, are to be offered fully and freely to God. As with all personal relationships, learning to love God is not something that occurs overnight. It grows, develops, and matures. What is scary to me is that word “all”. I have had the most challenging time over the last few years practicing to give God 100%. And it is not because I don’t want to. It is because I am still tugging and pulling with my sinful identity to give more to Christ and less to self. I do not know where the percentages are…90% God and 10% self, or 80% God and 20% self. But I look forward to the day when God can say that He has all of me.
It is because God does not yet fully possesses our being that we find it nearly impossible to follow His footsteps. His commandments require all. And if all is not given, then there will be a deficit. We will continue to fall short. Jesus certainly gave God all. He reserved nothing for self. He left nothing over for the gratification of the human flesh. He was not ambitious for anything except God’s perfect will. All the time and every time. All Jesus did was surrender. His life is the best example in all of human history of what it means to truly love God. We somehow manage to stop short and be content with this because we reason that well, Jesus is God, so of course He loved supremely. But it is not enough for Jesus to be such a wonderful exemplar and for us to come up so miserably short. The commandment to love God is not just a cute saying or a nice wall hanging, it is the reality of Christianity. It is us through God, and God through us, that all of life is to be lived. When we love God with all, this affinity for Deity shifts our whole existence into another atmosphere of living. Our entire life will take on the nature of God.
Now, when Jesus spoke these illustrious words He was locked into a great debate with the leaders of the Jewish nation. Their unwillingness to yield to God limited their ability to grow into God’s character. They withheld themselves from God while believing they were actually in the favor of God. What an illusion. Their influence and leadership were infected with the sickness of self-absorption, corruption, and inhumanity. Had they loved as they were commanded to love, they would have been different people. Instead, as leaders in God’s Jewish church, they represented all that was ugly and evil. And the whole nation suffered for it. If only they had given their hearts, minds, and souls to God. History would have be written much differently. And it is the same with us. The level of our love for God (how much of ourselves we’ve given to the Lord) is the indicator for how powerful or horrible our influence, service, and leadership will be.
This Sabbath we will tackle The Life and Teachings of Jesus: Leaders. Studying Matthew chapters 22 and 23, we will endeavor to unpack what is good and bad leadership based on the text. We’ll dive into how we can tell if we are under a good teacher or leader as well as how to grow into someone who can lead others well. I know, you don’t feel like a leader. But you are. In some way, shape or form, you are leading. So learn to love well, and you will learn to lead well. See you Sabbath.
Pastor Dean