Tag Archives: the greatest commandment

October 15, 2024 · 5:37 AM

Experiencing God’s Presence

One of the questions I like to ask is, “How do you connect with God?” I also like to find out, “When do you feel closets to Him?” What I’ve found is varying answers to these questions because we are wired differently. Some feel closest to Him when there’s worship playing. Others would say they feel closest when they are in nature experiencing His creation. Some will connect to God in solitude away from all distractions. I’ve had someone say they feel closest to God when they are serving other people. There are those who feel His presence as they study God’s Word or something in the world because they can see His handiwork.I’ve also seen someone connect to God through church rituals. The answers vary by our upbringing, our personality and by what we’ve been through.

Jesus is a great example of someone who connects with God in solitude. He was always going away to a quiet place to reconnect with God. Solomon was one who found God’s handiwork in everything he studied. We give her a hard time, but Martha connected with God through serving, while Mary did it through the quietness of sitting at His feet. I love reading Psalm 19 because it was written by someone as they were connecting with God through nature. People in the Early Church experienced God’s presence in the context of community and sharing meals. David expressed many different ways he connected with God, but we associate his with worship. Ultimately that is what connecting with God produces. It should grow our love for Him and create an attitude of worship.

In Mark 12:30 Jesus said, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength” (NLT) I’ve found at various times in my life I’m good at loving Him in some of these areas, but not all of them. I like to stop and evaluate how I’m doing in them every so often. When I’m lacking love for Him in certain areas, it’s usually because I’ve not been being intentional about taking the time to experience His presence and connecting with Him. Our lives can get so busy that we know we love God in our mind, but we fail to feel that love in our heart or express it with all of our soul and strength. How are you doing in all four of these areas? If you’re lacking, think about the first two questions I asked and take time to connect with God in your way. Loving and connecting with Him should be the priority in your life because that’s what will matter for eternity.

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

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February 9, 2023 · 5:30 AM

Loving God For Real

Several years ago I read a book called “Primal” by Mark Batterson and it wrecked me. It was based on Deuteronomy 6:5 that says, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and mind and with all your soul and with all your strength [your entire being]” (AMP). It’s a verse we all know that Jesus said was the greatest commandment. Think about that. Everything in the Bible, all the wisdom, all the lessons, all the do’s and don’t’s are below what this commandment says. The most important thing we can do with our lives is to love God with our entire being.

In the book he described how loving the Lord with all your heart is about having a heart filled with compassion for the things God is compassionate about. Loving Him with all your mind is about having a holy curiosity to know who God is. Loving Him with your soul is to love Him with a sense of wonder and awe that once wowed you about Him. Finally, loving Him with your strength is about being energized to do things for Him because He excites you. As I read those, it hit me, I wasn’t loving God in all four areas. I was good in some and just ok in others. That wasn’t ok with me.

God didn’t command us to love Him in one or two of these ways. We must love Him in all four. The call to the Church of Ephesus in Revelation 2, goes out to us. We must return to our first love. We must reignite the passion we once had. God is calling us to step out of the complacency of our relationship with Him so we can serve and love Him with everything in us. If we’re going to change this world, it starts with you and getting our relationship with God right first. Search over this verse today and ask God to show you what areas you’re missing the mark in. After you repent like I did, start doing something about it. We all have room to grow and get our love for God firing on all four cylinders.

Photo by Sam Rana.

Throwback Thursday is a feature I’m using to help build some margin into my schedule to pursue other ventures. Each Thursday I’ll be bringing you a previously written devotional that still speaks encouragement to us from God’s Word.

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December 1, 2020 · 5:57 AM

Loving Like Jesus

In Matthew 22, the Sadducees had tried to trap Jesus with a question and failed. The Pharisees then decided to give it a try. They asked Him which one out of all the commandments was the greatest. In verses 37-40, Jesus replied, “‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments” (NLT). They agreed with Him on that answer. If you love others the way you love yourself, you won’t break any of the other ones.

During the Last Supper, Jesus got up from the table, put on an apron and washed the disciples’ feet. Of course Peter objected and was then corrected. Afterwards, in John 13:34 Jesus said, “So I give you now a new commandment: Love each other just as much as I have loved you” (TPT). I find it interesting that He gave a new commandment that was slightly different than the first one. Instead of loving others the way we love ourselves, we should love others the way He loves us. Jesus was saying His love for us was greater than our own love for ourselves. He was also pointing out how He demonstrated that love. In all three commandments mentioned here, the love produces behaviors in the individual.

Think of His behavior that night. Knowing that Judas was about to betray Him, Peter was about to deny Him and the others were going to run away in His darkest hour, His love for them still reached for a towel. More than that, His love gave Him the strength to endure a night of torture and ultimately dying for each of their sins. Even after the resurrection, He went to all of them with the purpose of restoring the relationship. Loving others the way Jesus loved us is definitely more than we love ourselves. It’s a love that fulfills your end of the relationship, pushes through in even the hardest time and reaches out to restore others. It’s when we demonstrate this kind of love, the one greater than self love, that others will know that we are truly His disciples.

Photo by Emmanuel Phaeton on Unsplash

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March 1, 2016 · 5:30 AM

How To Love God

  
Several years ago, I read the book “Primal” by Mark Batterson. It was one of the most challenging books I’ve read. It expounds on Deuteronomy 6:5. It says, “And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength” (NLT). When you peel back all the layers of doctrines, rules, and traditions of Christianity, you will find this verse is the basis for a strong relationship with God.

Loving God with all our heart starts when we accept Him as our savior. In Luke 7, Jesus is approached by an immoral woman who weeps on His feet and then washes them with her hair. Everyone was in shocks as they watched this spectacle. Jesus used it as a teaching moment and said, “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” Loving God flows from a heart that’s been forgiven.

Loving God with all of our soul goes beyond the affection we feel for Him. It draws us into a life that is devoted to Him like what described in Colossians 1:10. It says, “That you may walk (live and conduct yourselves) in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him and desiring to please Him in all things, bearing fruit in every good work and steadily growing and increasing in and by the knowledge of God [with fuller, deeper, and clearer insight, acquaintance, and recognition]” (AMP). When we love with all of our soul, our lives reflect it.

Loving God with all of our strength is where I was really challenged in reading “Primal”. I realized that I had been neglecting the gifts that God had given me. I had been so afraid to fail that I never tried. I spent my time working on the first two portions of that verse, but not the third. While that’s good for my own growth, it does very little to help others in their relationship with God. Loving God with all of our strength means stepping out in faith, doing what we were called to do, and letting God do His part.

I Timothy 4:14 says, “Do not neglect the gift which is in you, [that special inward endowment] which was directly imparted to you [by the Holy Spirit] by prophetic utterance when the elders laid their hands upon you [at your ordination].” It takes more than loving God with all your heart and soul to follow what Jesus called the Greatest Commandment. It takes doing something with the gifts He’s given you. Don’t just keep them to yourself. Give them to the world and love God with all your strength.

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September 22, 2014 · 7:42 AM

When In Doubt…

When I was young, I loved the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. Each time you read them, it could be a different story. Every couple of pages, you had a choice to make. If you thought the character should do one thing, you turned to a certain page. If you thought they should do another, you turned to that page. Sometimes, I made the wrong choice, the character died and the book was over. I’d flip back, choose the other one and keep reading. It was easy to keep the story going.

In real life, it’s not that easy to go back and make the right choice after you’ve made the wrong one. Our story is forever altered by the decisions that we make. Often we are presented with dilemmas where there is no clear cut right or wrong answer. There are times when we can’t foresee what the outcome of our decisions will be. It’s hard to know what to do. Sometimes those decisions have eternal consequences and we can’t easily just go back and make the other choice.

At the first ever ReWrite Conference, I got the opportunity to meet and interact with Peter Strople. I was invited to attend a small group meeting with him and a few other writers. That meeting had an impact on my life and will be something I remember forever. In that meeting, he said, “When in doubt, love.” It’s so simple, yet so profound. I find myself constantly trying to find the right answer for every situation, and the answer is always the same. Love others.

A few years back, everyone was wearing “WWJD” bracelets. I can tell you what Jesus would do in any given situation. He would show love. He made His decisions based out of love for the person. It wasn’t always the easy decision, but it was the one He made constantly. He loved Peter enough to go to him after he had denied Him. He showed compassion to the woman caught in adultery. He was patient with Martha when she was concerned about all the wrong things. He didn’t disassociate himself from the woman at the well who had been divorced multiple times and was living with a man.

Jesus knew that love is what is required in each situation. That’s why when someone asked Him what the greatest commandment was, He added a second. In Matthew 22:37-40, He said the most important commandment was to love God with all your heart, soul and mind. Then he said, “The second is equally important: love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Both of the greatest commandment were about love. Loving God. Loving others. When you learn to love both, the right decision becomes clear. When in doubt, love.

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August 29, 2013 · 7:55 AM

Christianity Is A Verb

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Our Wednesday night small group wrapped up our series on “Unstuck” last night. The video portion that included commentary from several people was challenging. Each person that spoke on that video had a question or comment that got them to be the hands and feet of Jesus to others around them. They also inspired me to do more than I’ve ever done for others, so I want to share with you in hopes of it challenging you as well.

One of the first things Mark Batterson mentioned in this segment is that Christianity was never meant to be a noun. It has always been intended to be a verb. When we allow our Christianity to become a noun, it leaves a bad taste in other people’s mouth. It becomes who we are and not what we do. Jesus said, “Go into all the world. Preach the Gospel to every nation. Make disciples of all men.” Those are all verbs that command us to do something.

There was also a lady on the video who shared her story of how God has used her. She was asked the question, “Who are three people you know who don’t know Jesus and need you to be His hands and feet to?” She couldn’t answer that question. Instead of thinking it didn’t apply to her, she prayed that God would increase her circle of influence. God began opening doors for her to minister to others through washing laundry, helping with résumés and providing necessities for. All because she didn’t think her Christianity should be a noun.

The next part that really spoke to me had to do with stats. Did you know 25,000 people in the world will die today from starvation? Did you know that 5,760 children will become orphans today? Numbers are numbing. They don’t cause action usually. Names are what matters. If you want to see the names and faces of some orphans behind those numbers, click here. I dare you to click that link and move beyond a stat to the face and name of an orphan who needs your help. The real question here is, “Are you ok with this?” Can you live in the house you live in, drive the car you drive, eat at the restaurants you eat at and still be ok with the numbers above? If so, your Christianity is probably a noun.

Mark Batterson said, “When all of the rules and regulations, all of the traditions and institutions, all of the liturgies and methodologies are peeled back, what’s left is the Great Commandment: Love The Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. That is Christianity in its purest form. It’s not enough to love God with 2 or 3 out of the 4 listed. We must find ways to love with all 4. He didn’t give us a choice. He said to do this was the greatest commandment.

Finally, Mark challenged me with this phrase, “On the final day, God isn’t going to say, ‘Well thought, good and faithful servant’ or ‘Well said’. He is going to say, ‘Well done.'” It’s not enough to think of others or to say, “Have a good day; stay warm and eat well” to the cold and hungry according to James 2:16. God is looking for us to stop using Christianity as a noun and to start doing something with it. If your circle of influence of others who need Jesus is too small, I challenge you today to pray what that lady prayed. Ask God today to increase your circle of influence and to give you courage to do something for others because you aren’t ok with where you are.

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