Love the Lord Your God

“‘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 neighbor as yourself.’” (Matthew 22:37-39).

That’s what Jesus said is the greatest commandment there is, when He was questioned by the religious leaders of His day. And Jesus’ reply is no less relevant today than it was in the days when He walked this earth.

We want to ask you, do you REALLY “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind?”

We’re not asking if you SAY you do, but do you SHOW it by how you live your life? The Bible says,“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. DO what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it —he will be blessed in what he does“ (James 1:22-25).

In the light of these words from the Bible, is your life showing the love you SAY you have for your God? Are you a Bible-HEARING (or listening) person, or a Bible-LIVING Believer? If you say you are a Bible-living Believer who loves the Lord, what about the second greatest commandment that Jesus pointed out? Are you showing that you “‘love your neighbor as yourself'” by how you live your life?

What about how you live with your spouse? You can’t get any closer of a “neighbor” than your spouse! Do you love the Lord so dearly, that you are living out the love of Christ with your spouse?

I came to realize that the teachings of 1 Corinthians 13 are more than nice, idealistic suggestions. I have to apply them to how I live my life with my husband. If I don’t treat my husband Steve with love… being patient with his shortcomings, being kind to him in how I speak to him, not being rude, or easily angered —all I say about my love for the Lord, is equal to the noise-making of “a resounding gong, or a clanging cymbal.” The principle is that all I do for my husband is what I also am doing for the Lord “as unto the Lord.” (See Matthew 25:34-40.)

“If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world“ (James 1:26-27).

Are you keeping yourself “from being polluted by the world” and their standards of how you approach your marriage partner? We say “marriage partner” because that’s what you are when you marry. You join in partnership with God, and with your spouse in addressing his or her aloneness —to participate as God’s colleague in ministering to his or her needs, and visa versa. But even if your spouse doesn’t participate in partnering with you in this way, you still need to do your part if you are to follow the words of the Lord and “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Read what Dr David Ferguson says about partnering with God in marriage:

“[My wife] Teresa and I believe that God is the ultimate source for meeting all our needs. We understand our deep need for God. Nothing else —not possessions, not success, not another person —can fill the God-shaped vacuum within each of us. God alone brings peace and order to the human heart. Yet God,  in his unsearchable wisdom, has chosen to partner with us to remove the ‘not good’ out of aloneness in our spouses. He is still the source for taking away the ‘not good’ of being alone in our marriages, but he desires to enlist us as his colleagues in the process.”

Keep in mind that you are not your spouse’s Holy Spirit. God is. And your spouse is not to be your everything either. He or she is to be God’s colleague —but not His substitute. As author Lysa TerKuerst said, “Even a great husband makes a poor God.” (We have an article posted with the same title on our web site in the “For Married Women” topic.) She wrote,

“The main thing that has transformed my marriage is my letting God be my God. Instead of focusing on all the things my husband didn’t do right or letting his approval or disapproval consume me, I learned to go to God and say, ‘Lord, I know You love me and You love my husband. So please either change him or change my heart toward him or this issue we are facing.’ Sometimes He’ll soften my husband but more times than not God will change me.”

Don’t allow the world to handcuff you into loving your spouse as it says you should. Look to the Bible as your guidebook for how you should demonstrate your love towards your spouse.

“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness“ (James 3:13-18).

During this Christmas and New Year season with the wonderful opportunities it brings to celebrate, don’t forget to hold back enough energy, so you aren’t too busy to be kind to each other. Keep in mind that if you’re too busy to be kind, you’re too busy. No activities justify being unkind to each other.

Love the Lord your God and love your spouse as yourself, and the Lord will receive no greater gift this Christmas, or any other time of the year. He wants you, your heart, your love, and for you to love those He loves.

Cindy and Steve Wright