Did Jesus really say to just “Love God and love others?” Not exactly. There’s nuance we often miss when we try to boil faith down to pithy little statements. Jesus didn’t just say “love God.” He said “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. Matthew 22:37-38 ESV
He’s quoting Deuteronomy 6 almost verbatim. “Love God” doesn’t cary the same weight as “Love God with all your heart soul and mind.” This is a tall order and we haven’t even gotten to “Love your neighbor AS YOURSELF.” emphasis mine. I spent quite a bit of time unpacking the differences Sunday. As I shared the message I explained I couldn’t fit everything in to a 29 minute message on a Sunday morning. I promised to expand some more ways we can know we are loving God the way he prescribed. Here are a few additional characteristics of loving God.
Seeking our happiness in God
We are constantly bombarded with opportunities to rely on things people and places for happiness. It’s a near constant temptation to believe we’d be happy if we had, lived, or loved some thing, place or person. God invites us to determine to find happiness in Him as He is unchanging. The Psalms are full of expressions of happiness found in God and God alone. He is our refuge, strength and also our source of joy. As we mature we realize that seeking happiness should be a focused effort on the Lord and His presence. He alone can sustain the weight of true lasting pleasure.
Thirsting for a fuller enjoyment of God
Again love is a wonderful illustration of this. When we love someone we long to be with them more. We long to enjoy more experiences alongside them. Simply put, we long to enjoy them more and more, not less. We find a deep abiding desire to grow in the relationship and it’s accompanying pleasures. Love for God exhibits the same behaviors. We are never satisfied with “enough” of the Lord. We seek to know Him more intimately, experience hIm more powerfully and enjoy Him more fully.
As usual I’m piggybacking off smarter authors, writers and leaders than myself. Dr Allan Brown wrote this article that articulates these and much of what I shared Sunday morning in a better way than I could. I hope these writings and anything of value i shared Sunday encourage you as you endeavor to love God with all your heart soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.