Love the Lord

It is thought provoking to consider all the laws, ordinances and regulations that are in place in our world today. To wrap our minds around them, let alone obey them perfectly, is almost impossible. However, without many of them, there would be complete chaos.

The Law of God found in the Old Testament is very vast as well. But have you ever wondered what the greatest and most important commandment is? In Matthew 22:37–40, Jesus sheds light on this very subject and the answer may not be what you would expect.

When asked by a lawyer what the greatest commandment was, Jesus replied, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” But what made these the “greatest” vs. any of the others?
One of the keys is found in verse 40, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” The entire Law of God is summed up and fulfilled by these two commandments! How is this possible? At the heart of every command God had ever given was to love Him and to love our neighbor. It is God’s love that fulfills the entire Law! This places the emphasis not on our own abilities, but on getting to know God through personal relationship with Him!

But one might ask, “If loving God and loving our neighbor is the fulfillment of the Law, how do we receive and walk in God’s love”? The answer to this question is actually quite simple — first, we must receive the very Person of Love, Jesus Christ. We do this by putting our faith in Him as our Lord and Savior (John 3:16).

Secondly, as believers we must daily receive and abide in the wonderful love God has for us. How is this done? We find the answer in John 14:21, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” The word keepeth in the Greek is tereo, which means “to watch, guard and observe.”

We can do this by keeping the gaze of our soul fixed upon Christ and His commands through memorizing and meditating on His Word. This will cause us to treasure them in our hearts and live them out in our lives. As we engraft God’s Word and learn to value Christ’s commands in this way, not only will we experience God’s love for us but we will also become a channel of His love to others.