Love Is The Principle Thing
Mark 12:29-34 "And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments [is], Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this [is] the first commandment. And the second [is] like, [namely] this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love [his] neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God."
What is the strongest power in the universe? Is it nuclear fission or fusion? It is said that if man could fully unlock the power of controlled nuclear fusion, the power of the sun, he would have unlimited power to probe the uttermost recesses of the galaxy in which we live. Couple this with a viable superconductor and a second industrial and technological revolution of unimaginable dimensions would be possible. A cup of water could then provide the basic energy source to power a great city for a considerable period of time. We can only speculate on the ultimate impact of such power. Yet there already exists greater motive power than this. Paul spoke of it when he spoke of the power of the gospel; which is based upon the love of God.
What is really the greatest power in the universe? The power of love. In this time of terrorist threats, economic turmoil, political upheaval and social breakdown, what is the most powerful force that could be brought to bear to right the wrongs that exist in this world? An old song says it all. "What the world needs now is love." Not the mush sentimental sort written about in the romantic ballads of bygone days. Nor the erotic, sensual, sexually exploitative sort of so-called love that permeates so much of today's world of entertainment. An emotion that could more accurately be defined and characterized as lust rather than love. But what the world needs now is the love that has it source in God. What the New Testament terms agape love. A Godlike love.
This word agape is essentially a Christian word. It glows with a glory given it by the God of this universe. It is the word He chose to express His attitude toward those for whom He gave His Son on the cross. The most tremendous thing about this love is that God has made it freely available to all mankind. But He has especially given it as His gift to true believers Paul said this love is shed abroad in the child of God's heart by the Spirit of the Living God. He also characterized this love as the constraining or motive force that under-girds and lifts up the Christian as he lovingly serves His Lord by serving those around him. God has freely given it to us. "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind." (II Tim. 1:7)
Men throughout the ages have recognized this great power for good. The brilliant but egotistical Napoleon Bonaparte said, "Alexander, Ceasar, Charlemagne and myself founded great empires; but upon what did the creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love, and to this day millions would die for Him." Love finds its highest example in the perfect life and sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. His is an unconditional love. A love freely given to and for the unlovely and unlovable. A love without strings attached. A love not contingent upon an expectation of reciprocation or reward. "But He commendeth His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Ro. 5:8)
One of the most defining aspects of this great love was the willingness of our Saviour to make Himself vulnerable for us. He who spoke this universe into existence opened Himself to all the horrible and awful possibilities of life among His rebellious creatures and a terrible and sacrificial death at their unloving and ungrateful hands. He willingly closed off all His options as He set His face toward Jerusalem and the cross. For you see, one cannot truly love while keeping his options open. To truly love, whether it is one's mate, family or friends, one must give himself without reservation and say, as our Saviour did, that he can be despised, rejected, hurt and destroyed, but he will still love until the end.
This is not naturally the human way. But it is the way of agape, or Godlike love. The cross is God's eternal illustration defining such love. The cross flows from the heart of the Father and His Son. It effectively expresses the very essence of heart love. Such love is characterized by giving and sacrifice. Because greater love can no man have than this.
The story is told of a little girl who was critically injured in an accident years ago.. She desperately needed a blood transfusion. It was soon discovered that her seven year old brother had the only compatible blood available. So the doctor took him into his office and said to him, "Son, your sister is very sick. Unless she gets some blood the angels will take her to heaven." The young boy's face turned pale and he was obviously very scared. But in a minute he whispered yes to the doctor. When the transfusion began the doctor noted the boy was still very frightened and he said to him, "Don't be afraid, it will all be over soon." Then, with big tears welling up in his eyes, the boy whispered, "Will I die pretty soon then?" He thought he was giving all his blood to his sister so she could live. That is real heart love!
But the love of God is even greater than this. As far as man is concerned, this heart love begins experientially with his salvation. It must be expressed when one reaches out with all his heart to God for the gift of salvation. Anything less than a total love for God and His salvation will not move one to turn from the world and sin and wholeheartedly accept Jesus Christ as his Saviour and Lord. Only heart faith will suffice in meeting God's condition of salvation. (Ro. 10:8-13) Such heart faith must be expressed in tandem with heart repentance. (Ro. 2:4) This condition is expressed by the Psalmist as well, "The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart and saves such as be of a contrite spirit." (Psalm 34:18) Paul, who experienced the depth of such heart response to God on the road to Damascus, said, "For Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of:.." II Cor. 7:10)
A child, when asked to define Godly sorrow said, "Well Judas only did penance and went out and hanged himself, but Peter truly repented and went out and wept bitterly." This reaching out for God's love with all one's heart certainly involves more than a mere head religion. It means more than a mere mental assent to God's existence and reality. James said that even the devils have a head religion. They believe in the reality of God and tremble, but this certainly does not move them to seek His salvation nor to exchange their hate for Him to love.
The story of publican as well as the story of the prodigal confirm that the heart cry of one sinner is dearer to the heart of God than all the pious prayers and pitiful penitence of the religious Pharisee. God saves the sinner and the Father runs to meet the truly repentant while he is yet, "a great way off." Once one is saved, all true worship and acceptable service must be rendered from the heart unto God. Paul tells us this is reasonable. The love of God is shed abroad in our heart to constrain and draw us to Him. Worship and service rendered in any other way for any other reason is not acceptable in His sight. It is tremendously important that we do things God's way; explicitly and in detail.
But the reason why we do what we do is even more important than what we do. If we love Him, we will keep His commandments and will not consider His commandments to be negative, restrictive or difficult. Yes, expressing love to God with all our hearts would solve so many difficulties as far as faithfulness in service is concerned. What would such heart love move a person to do when it is time to: study the Word of God? Assemble with the saints? Give generously and sacrificially to the Lord's work? Help a brother or sister in need? Bear another's burden? Lift up a fallen one? Witness to the lost? And to do any and all of these things without whining or complaining?
We are to love the Lord with all our soul. This means with all our God-given being and all our life. Jesus spoke of such love in these terms, "And when he had called the people [unto him] with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"
The person who loves God with all his life will not hesitate to give his life as a living sacrifice to His Lord in dedicated service. Through the expression of such love we can save our life for eternity. We can lay up treasures in heaven, rather than upon the earth. The story is told of a lady who visited a Christian home in which the children were well taught in the things of the Lord. While there, she observed two boys enjoying some beautiful toys. She remarked, "Well, boys, are these your treasures?" "Oh, no," the oldest boy replied, "These are only toys, our treasures are in heaven!" It's so true that many of the things we enjoy and occupy ourselves with on this earth are only temporary and transient. They will not last. We should not set our heart upon them. "The fashion of this world passeth away." But we should lay up treasures in heaven. If we disobey this commandment, Satan will rob us of our life. We'll have no spiritual treasure in that day. If this happens, we will go before the Judgment Seat of Christ empty-handed. Our lost life will be burned as wood, hay and stubble.
Have you every wondered how so many of our spiritual ancestors were able to respond so nobly and give their physical life for the Lord rather than deny Him? Did you ever consider what it might be like to be called upon, as they were, to be thrown to the lions, lay your head upon the executioner's block or willingly hold out your hands to be tied to the fiery stake? There's one thing we can be sure of, these first of all loved the Lord with all their souls and gave themselves as living sacrifices before they were ready to die for Him.
We are to love the Lord God with all our mind. The mind is the centre of man's thought life. It is on this field of conflict that battles are won or lost. It is the place of planning and prioritizing. It is the arena in which one must decide to accept or reject, follow or turn back. We cannot be of two minds about our love for God. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. We cannot focus our mind and thought life upon the Lord and the world simultaneously. The two are mutually exclusive. We cannot have the mind-set of the world and the mind of Christ also. We cannot set our affections on things above while we are absorbed by ungodly things below. We cannot hold hands with God and the world as well.
Jesus spoke about this need to lovingly focus our minds upon God and His will in this way, "If therefore thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.." (Matt. 6:22) Implying that confusion and darkness will reign if this is not the case. In doing so He made an allusion to the idea that a cross- eyed person has great difficulty focusing upon an object. It appears out of focus and confusing to him. In order to have a true impression and understanding of the object the two eyes must work together as a single eye. This is the context of His statement, "No man can serve two masters .. .” (Matt. 6:24) Loving God with all our mind requires a single-minded purpose in our life. Such love will always be manifest in single-minded devotion and action.
We are to love the Lord our God with all our strength. This also speaks of an absolute devotion to the will and way of God. Our love for God can be measured by the energy and strength we exert in His service. How can we say we truly love God if much of our energy and strength is dedicated to selfishly fulfilling our own lusts, desires and wants? We live in a world that has this as its underlying philosophy. A humanistic world that has dethroned God and devotes its time and energy to selfishly deifying man. Look out for number one, and we know who number one really is. So many of the terrible ills of our modern day culture find their source in this philosophy. This basic selfishness is the rationale' of all the perversions surrounding us today. Everyone demanding their right to be gods unto themselves and devoting their strength to doing only that which seems right in their own eyes.
The terrible toll taken by the breakdown of the family and the robbing of children of the stability or a loving home with two loving parents, is a manifestation of this. In a world in which even God's people seem persuaded of their right to place the pursuit of pleasure, popularity and power as their number one priority, there can be very little time and strength left for lovingly serving the Lord. Could this possibly be the reason we have so much confusion among the people of God today? Could it be a reason that sensualism and sensationalism seem to have replaced real separated service and spiritual power? Could it be a reason for the apparent triumph of Satan's purpose and power in so many places and people today?
Let us ask ourselves why does God give us His love and than bless us with His commandments about love? Could it be that He, as our loving Father, wants the very best for us, not only in this world, but in the world to come? And could it be that the way of love is the only way that this can come to pass? Could it be that even though we seem to rarely fully understand or really respond to the love He has expressed to us in Christ Jesus, He urges us on to daily extend ourselves and reach out to others in expressing His love to the world around us? Because this is the way to real happiness complete fulfillment in life?
