By David ReayThursday 6 Nov 2014LifeWords DevotionalsFaithReading Time: 0 minutes
Transcript:
Read Mark 12:28-31
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 neighbour as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.” (NLT)
Any follower of Jesus knows the importance of loving God. As Jesus says,it is the commandment which encapsulates all the other commandments. All other commands are expressions of how we can love God. Especially the command to love one another.
But that is the easy part. The hard part is actually loving God. We may confuse love with a certain feeling and be frustrated that we don’t feel very loving. We may decide that love is just sticking to the divine rules and find that our love seems very much like doing one’s duty.
Love for God does involve obedience: it is not a warm fuzzy feeling. But note that love is all encompassing: every part of our being is involved. It does include feelings even if it is not confined to feelings.
So how do we learn to love? Not by some sure-fire technique,not by some secret formula. We learn to love by loving. We resolve to love God even if we find it hard to do and even if we don’t always grasp what it means. We seek his good,we draw close to him,we try to please him. We press on,aware our love will always be imperfect,aware also that our love will always be accepted.
Just as we learn to run by running,we learn to drive by driving,we learn to study by studying,so we learn to love by loving.
Blessings
David Reay