Feb 26, 2018 – Mark 12
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 12:30
He's not looking for
a portion of our love... He wants all of it.
This age-old instruction from God captures the essence of
every command and instruction out of His mouth.
Even loving our neighbor comes out of loving God first. So the teachers are probably not surprised
that Jesus would quote this as the number one objective of life --- even if
some had anticipated he might respond with one of the 10 Commandments.
Many people would say they love God – but here’s where it
gets sticky. Jesus uses the word ALL in
every aspect of love, showing that God is not impressed with partial love, but
growing love. All of us are guilty of
showing love to God in partial ways.
Some worship him every week … except for those weeks they are busy with
sports or personal enjoyments. Some obey
His commandments completely … as long as it doesn’t impact their standard of
living. Some are fully involved in
serving the Lord’s Kingdom … but have forgotten they are not serving for the
attention or accomplishment, but serving for God’s enjoyment. We have this tendency to offer God partial
love, and feel good about it as long as it compares better than others in our
network.
The measure of “all” is not found in comparing to others
around us. There will always be some who
express less love than us, and others who express more love. The measure of “all” is between you and
God. Is what you’re offering to God
“all” you have to give at this moment?
Are you serving or giving or worshipping out of complete love? Love is not just about volume or quality,
it’s also about motive.
If we just started every day looking to Love God with all we
have, there’s a good chance it would change the rest of our day
drastically. Not only might it change
our schedules and activities, it might help us recognize the moments built into
every day when God is working and wants to involve us. It might just open the door to conversations
about God with friends and family at a distance from Him. It might just restructure our behavior to
react differently – giving grace instead of judgment, providing forgiveness
instead of anger, seeking His Word instead of our opinions. Loving God is not just a momentary checkmark
on our day, it means being invaded by His love every moment of the day.
Let’s just be honest.
It takes more than one lifetime to learn to love God with “all”. There’s so much to change and unlearn. We’ll never completely arrive this side of
heaven. God knows that, but His standard
doesn’t change. He celebrates the growth
of our love, not the gap of our love. So
how is that looking these days? Is your
gap of love shrinking? Is the growth
happening?
Use today as a starting point and re-examine your love
level. Is God First in your
schedule? Is worship a priority? Are you growing in obedience to His
commands? Is anything hindering your
time with Him every day? Don’t try to
feel better by ignoring or excusing it --- choose today to Grow Your Love of
God. After all --- He wants and deserves
ALL of our love, so MORE of it would be a good place to start.
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