“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Deuteronomy 6:5
“And he answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.’” Luke 10:27
From Deuteronomy to the Gospels, the Bible continuously calls us to do something so simple…love God. It’s so interesting that that’s one of the most consistent commands in scripture - just to love Him. It shows us that God isn’t just after shallow obedience, he wants every part of us to love Him. Now this isn’t a narcissistic desire, as if God had a selfish need to be needed, or anything like that. God wants us to have true life, and to have joy to the fullest. That is only found when we do what’s best for us, and what we’re made for - loving God.
“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19
Love is at the very center of who God is. The supreme ruler of the universe, who created and sustains all things, loves us. That’s incredible, and also hard to understand. How could this God, in all of His infinite grandiosity, be concerned with me…and not just that, but also care for me?
“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” Matthew 6:26
He cares for you. He loves you, and He loved you first. There’s nothing we could do to earn His attention or affection, but still He loves us. All of creation is sustained by His hand, even the seemingly small, and insignificant parts. There is so much comfort in knowing that He cares for us, provides for us, and loves us. No detail of our lives is too small. We are invited to cast all of our cares upon Him (1 Peter 5:7).
“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” 1 John 4:9-11
The love of God doesn’t end with us, it begins with us. Because God loves us, we love one another. Love also changes us. In response to the initiating, saving love of God, we praise and love Him with the entirety of our being. The love of God leads to a response of a sacrificial life of worship.
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Romans 12:1
“The more I praise You
The more I want to
I'm falling in love
Falling in love with You
I lay my life down
God I am Yours now
I'm falling in love
Falling in love with You”
Thank you Jesus, for loving us, and inviting us into a life of worship and meaning. Help us to abide in You, and make us more like You. Teach us to submit to Your way of life, for it’s better than anything else. Help us to fall more in love with You, every day we have left.