On the 24th February 1981, our country and indeed the world was captivated by the official announcement of the engagement of our future king, Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer. When asked by journalists “Were they in love?” they both replied “yes”, actually if I remember correctly, Lady Diana added “of course!” Our future king’s addition is remembered better, he added “Whatever love means.”
The word love is defined in the dictionary as “A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.” To be in love is defined as having as “Experiencing deep affection or intense desire for another.”
In the New Testament the word love is mentioned 228 times, if you add up all its deritives such as loving, loves etc it totals over 500 mentions. It is the most recognised word in any language, it is the subject used most commonly in literature, both fiction and non- fiction, it is the most common central theme for lyricists in secular and religious song writing alike and is responsible for selling more greeting cards than any other subject but what is the true meaning of love?
In this morning’s scripture reading, Jesus opens our eyes to the true nature of love when he said “Love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second
is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
In this passage Jesus gives us three directions for love, they are:
love toward God, love toward others and love toward ourselves.
Our love for God is an upward love that must take priority over everything else. When we first entered college, we were fired up to do the work God had called us to do, however, as the essays started to come in I found myself pushing God to the back of my priorities in order to meet the deadlines. The time I normally reserved for my daily appointment with God, which was usually first thing in the morning, was swallowed up by working into the early hours to finish assignments, which meant that, where I would normally spend an hour at the beginning of the day I was barely able to snatch fifteen minutes. This meant that I felt spiritually dry for the rest of the day but more importantly, I was not showing God the love and attention that is rightfully his. Thankfully the situation was resolved but for me it hi-lighted the dangers of getting so wrapped up in the busy ness of working for God that we end up neglecting to give the one we serve the full love and attention he deserves, God deserves all of our love, not only part of our love. We should love nobody more than we love God. ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'
As I look out at you today, I know that many of you have a deep and abiding love of God and I also know that many of you will ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' But I wonder if any of you can truly say that you love God unconditionally as he loves you? I know that even though some of you may be suffering inwardly at the moment you will still love God with a passion that illness nor anything else can take away but I want you to be honest with yourself and ask yourself the question “Do I really love God unconditionally?”
I was at a one day conference in May, the speaker was Dallas Willard, a renowned philosopher and teacher on Spiritual Formation and was really challenged in my thinking, not by the celebrated Professor Willard but by the conversation I had with one of my session mates. We were talking about Julian of Norwich, who lived in the 1300’s. Julian of Norwich is reputed to have written “Oh how I would have longed that there be no heaven nor hell to sway my thinking, nor death of my Saviour Christ but just to love my God for who he is and not what he hath done for me.”
I asked myself the same question that I have just asked you and came to the same honest conclusion that many of you, if you’re being truthful to yourselves came to. We love God because of the sacrifice he made when he surrendered to the cross and through his resurrection gave us a hope of an eternal life spent with him in heaven. However we look at it, we cannot ignore that unconditional act of love and as such can never love God unconditionally and God’s love is unconditional. When Jesus surrendered to the cross, he didn’t make any provisos for doing so, he didn’t say “Okay, I’ll allow them to whip me, humiliate me and nail me to the cross but I want to see some change in your behaviour before I do.” He did it anyway, unconditionally and out of love. Because God’s love for all of us is unconditional. Romans 5 verse 8 reads “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” And John 3: 16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Though we may never be able to love God unconditionally in the way that he loves us, we can love others in the way God loves us and indeed that was Jesus’ own direction to his disciples. In John 13: 34- 35 it says."A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
“As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
One of my great heroes of the faith, John Wesley believed love to be the root of Christian perfection or holiness, a portion of one of his sermons reads...
“What is then the perfection of which man is capable while he dwells in a corruptible body? It is complying with that kind command, “My son, give me thy heart.” It is the “loving the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind.” This is the sum of Christian perfection: It is all comprised in that one word, Love. The first branch of it is the love of God: And as he that loves God loves his brother also, it is inseparably connected with the second: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself:” Thou shalt love every man as thy own soul, as Christ loved us. “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets:” These contain the whole of Christian perfection.”
1 John 4: 16 says “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.”
The love of God is what gave us life in creation....
The love of God is what sought us out and offers us salvation through faith in Christ.
Jesus taught that if love is to be fully manifested we must love God first; others second, and Ourselves
Last.
The trouble with society today is that it tends to get this the wrong way round, people in general tend to put themselves first, others a distant second and God an even more distant third, if indeed he comes into the equation at all.
Thankfully Jesus had the right equation...
If we ‘Love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind.' The second part should flow naturally. If we love God, then our love for others will grow even greater, because this upward love produces a love for others...and then for ourselves.
In fact, if we love God the most, we will love others the best.
C.S. Lewis once wrote, “When I have learned to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now.”
Our love for God motivates us to love others, Jesus told us we were to love our neighbour, but it’s not always easy. The American author C.W. Vanderbergh once wrote: “To love the whole world for me is no chore. My only real problem is my neighbour next door.”
I mentioned that if we ‘Love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind.' The second part should flow naturally. A river on its journey downhill flows naturally but occasionally it will run into an obstacle or barrier such as hard rock, over time it will find a way through the barrier. That’s how we should love others, we may run up against obstacles, people who are hurting naturally put up barriers, I know I did when I was drinking but just as the river persists on its course, so should we by not giving up on that person, by not turning away, we should love them unconditionally just as God loves us unconditionally, even if they never come to faith.
2 Peter 3 verse 9 says “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” God knows that not everyone will turn back to him but he still loves them.
On 10th July, Lorraine and I were commissioned as Officers but before we even got on to the platform at Methodist Central Hall, we had to sign our Covenants at Sunbury Court. One of the promises on that Covenant is that we will promise “To care for the poor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, love the unlovable, and befriend those who have no friends,”) Jesus befriended the outcasts, the beggars, the lepers, the people on the fringes of society who were without friends. If I profess to love Christ and desire to be like him (which I do) then it follows naturally to do the things he would do, to love the way he loved without exception.
During our time in college, both Lorraine and I volunteered at Faith House in Kings Cross, for many of those who visited week in week out, Faith House would have been the only contact they would have of other human beings in a positive way. One of the men who was a regular, when asked by another regular “Why he came?” replied “Because here I can just be myself, relax and enjoy good conversation without fear of judgement, there is something intangible here, it’s a feeling of love and being loved for who I am, not what I am and it’s a love I could never earn but it’s given anyway.”
Just as God’s love is unconditional and self-less so should our love for others.
Evangeline Booth, the daughter of our founder and the fourth general of The Salvation Army, sat in a squalid slum one day, cleaning the sores of a drunk woman.“I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars,” said a friend. “Neither would I,” replied Evangeline.
I mentioned earlier that sometimes we may come up against barriers put in place by hurting people to keep us out. However, the hardest barriers to overcome are the ones we put up around ourselves.
Jesus said “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ How do you love your neighbour as yourself, if you don’t have any love for yourself? To be honest there is no easy answer to this question, if there was, there would be many psychiatrists and counsellors out of work. The trouble is that many either forget the last part of Jesus’ statement or confuse the “as yourself” to be a mandate for self love and thereby turn the whole statement on its head. However, if we consider His words in context--we can see that the principle that Jesus gave us is both radical and refreshing!
Jesus was saying that by loving God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, we cannot help but love others in the unconditional way in which God loves us but he was also saying we are to love ourselves because the God who created us, loves us so much that he left heaven to live amongst us and lay down his own life that we may be reconciled to him. God is love and God loves you, loves me loves everybody.
As we enter into a time of reflection, we are going listen to the tune of song number 75 in the Magnify songbook; “Your Love”, the words will appear on the screen. Take time to read and reflect on the words, and respond however you feel led.
I realise that there may be some here who are struggling to believe that God loves them and struggling to love themselves. There may be some here, who for whatever reason may be struggling to love their neighbour and there may be someone here who is actually struggling to love themselves let alone love God. If that is you, take a few precious moments to reflect and pray into your own situation, either where you’re sat or at our place of prayer which is always open. Come empty handed if you would like someone to pray with you or bring a songbook or Bible if you would like to pray alone, but please take this opportunity to surrender your concerns to Jesus as you feel the need.
