He
answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your
soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your
neighbor as yourself.'" Luke 10:27
I always felt it strange
that God needed to command us to love him. (It is the first and greatest of all
the commandments.) Now I see better. When God calls us to love him as our
“first love,” it is not only because he deserves to hold that place in our
hearts, but also because he knows what pain will come when we get that out of
order. If you give the part of your soul that is meant for God to lesser
things, they will break your heart because they cannot possibly come through
for you in the ways God can. Only he will never leave you or forsake you. The
command is a rescue from disaster.
Many of you have begun to discover the joy
and freedom loving God brings to the rest of your life. Keeping God as our
first love, we are not destroyed when others fail to love us well; we are able
to weather criticism, loneliness, and rejection. Our other loves are able to
find their whole and wholesome expression, and we are able to flourish as human
beings. Anchored in True Love, our hearts can go on to love. Because we have
first things first, as the saying goes.
No comments:
Post a Comment