The Great Commandment-Love of God & of Neighbour
(Deut 6: 2-6; Psalm 18; Hebrews 7: 23-28; Mark 12: 28b-34)
Fr Nelson Lobo OFM Cap
Introduction: In this passage, the Pharisees send an expert in their religious law to test Jesus by asking Him a highly debated question of the day. The Pharisees, the religious leaders, observed 613 different commands. They often disagreed as to which one was the greatest. They thought Jesus’s teaching was so radical they wanted to test Him in front of the people. They expected Him to deny the law, but instead He quoted a part of Scripture that the Jews repeated every day. He says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. And don’t forget… Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you think about it that is a lot of loving. All of your heart. There can be no other before him. Not mother, not father, not wife or husband, not children. No one. All of your mind. All of your waking hours you will keep him in your thoughts. All of your soul. You commit your soul to him in love. All of your strength. You must devote all of your energy in sickness and health to loving Him.
How do I love God with all my heart mind, soul & strength? In our text Jesus gives us four ways to love God. We call this the Great Commandment.
• Love the Lord your God with all your heart. To love the Lord with all your heart means to love Him with pure devotion. It’s not enough to give Christ a place in our hearts. We are called to love Him with all of our heart. When you love someone with all of your heart, you think about them almost all of the time. You long to be with them. They’re the priority in your life.
• Love Him with all your soul. To love God with all our soul means that our love for God ought to be full of passion. And we are all people of passion. Some people are passionate about sports, about their work, about their hobbies etc. People are passionate about all sorts of things, but how many of us have the same passion for God that we have for these other things? Real love is passionate love. To love God with all our soul means that we must be involved with all our emotions in our relationship to Him. And when you’ve really given Jesus all of your heart, then it’s easy to become excited about following Him.
• Love the Lord your God with all your mind. This is a love that is thoroughly considered. But what happens a lot of times is that we have people coming to church because they like the emotional charge that they get, and because they feel good. But they are never equipped for the working of ministry, they are never built up in their most holy faith, and they are not rooted and grounded in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. And then when the storms come, they end up disillusioned and apathetic. Loving God is not an emotional expression that bypasses the mind. It is clear from the Scripture that God fully intends for our minds to be involved in our love for Him. In Romans 12, we are told that our minds need to be renewed. In 1st Peter we are told to prepare our minds for work. And here, we are told to love God with our entire mind. A mind committed to Christ and being transformed by His renewing power is a big part of keeping your passion for God.
• Love Him with all your strength. Christianity is not just a heart dedicated to God, Christianity must be fully lived out. To love God with all our strength means to love God in all that we do. Colossians 3:17 says, “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” You see, Christianity that is just in the heart or in the head may be either emotionalism or intellectualism. For Christianity to be alive, it must be lived out. This is what makes the Christian faith the most powerful force in the world. James 1: 22 says, “But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” When we look into a mirror we can see if our face needs some work or not. when we are hearers of God’s Word, but not doers of God’s Word, what we’re doing is, ignoring those spiritual pimples, wrinkles, and blemishes in our lives. God’s Word is the cure to all of our faults, and flaws, but when we don’t apply it, we will just continue in them. Corinthians13 is known as the love chapter. We read, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy; it does not boast. It is not proud, it is not rude. It is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs…” John 13:34-35 is a basic instruction for us to follow. It says, “A new command I give to 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.” Mother Teresa, when asked how she had accomplished such great things in her life said this, “None of us can do anything great on our own, but we can all do a small thing with great love.” “We may WANT God, but we want something else more. And we get what we want most.” -A.W. Tozer
Cultivating Passion for God. Psalm 42:1 “As the deer pants for water so my soul pants for You”. Those who don’t have this passion and fit into one of two categories: Those who need a heart transplant and those who have a new heart, but poor circulation. You can have an interest in God. You can have a desire for spiritual things. But you can’t have a true passion for God until God has given you a new heart. God describes our heart transplant that occurs at salvation in Ezekiel 36:(26-27) “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” Bible has some examples of passion, both negative and positive. Negative: Samson and David – Passion led them to lust and sexual immorality, Balam – Passion for money, Pharisees – Passion for religion, Peter – passion for vengeance. Positive: Moses – Passion for the people of Israel, Nehemiah – Passion to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, Paul – Passion to plant new church. Webster Dictionary defines passion as intense driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction, intense emotion compelling action. Passion energizes the Christian life. It gives us additional focus in life. Without the passion of God in our lives we will lead dull and draining existence. Passion is one of the ways that God empowers our lives. Passion makes change in us. It changes our attitude, our behavior and our relationships. Passion is contagious. Passion is caught by other people it cannot be taught. Passion reveals the living witness of Jesus Christ in our lives. Passion works like a magnet – some people will be drawn to you and others will be pushed away.
Conclusion: A lot of times when people first come to the Lord, when they are a new Christian, that they have a passion and a fire for God, but then it seems after a while, that fire kind of burns out. After a while they kind of loose their desire to serve God, and they just aren’t dedicated to the things of God like they used to be. Well, 9 times out of 10 this happens because of disillusionment. Christians become disillusioned, this comes from either a lack of understanding, a wrong focus, or wrong expectations of God, and eventually disillusionment can lead to apathy. And apathy leads to spiritually unhealthy Christians.
“A Christian without passion for God is like a river without water”.